I Don't Wanna Die
by Hemoptysis
Summary: A "sentient" necromorph reflects on the pivotal moment he had to break his promise... to save the person he cares about most. A lengthy one-shot songfic set to Hollywood Undead's "I Don't Wanna Die". Implied Ellie/OC. Rated T for some language and gore.


_Alright, since I'm sure a lot of you are probably scratching your heads over the weird summary, allow me to explain. This one-shot songfic stems from a small "RP" I have going with a friend based on a situation in which Ludwig and Vlach (My sentient Leaper and sentient Stalker characters, you may remember them from my first fanfic) had managed to join Isaac on the escape shuttle after his battle with the Hive Mind, and so pretty much suffer his same fate from there. After three years of being studied, interrogated, and spending periods of time held in stasis much like Isaac did, they now accompany him throughout the events on the Sprawl. To make a long story short, Vlach is later assigned by Isaac to stay with Ellie and Stross, both to help protect her and to keep Stross under control… and Vlach eventually finds that he's fallen in love with her. What happened after that? Well, I'll stop my rambling now so you can read on and find out. Enjoy._

_- Hemoptysis_

_I do not own Dead Space, any of its characters, or the "I Don't Wanna Die" lyrics. I own only Ludwig and Vlach, to some degree._

_PS: For the readers out there unfamiliar with my first fanfic, I'll just point out again right here that Vlach's name is pronounced "Vlock". People seem to have trouble with that sometimes, for some reason. Heh._

oOo

**I Don't Wanna Die**

My name is Vlach. Well… that's not my _real _name, obviously. The one I grew up with. I lost that identity a long time ago, when I was killed, my body infected by an alien virus. There's not much I can remember about my former life... as a human. So it's "Vlach" that I go by now… as a necromorph. A _sentient _necromorph.

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**I don't wanna die, so you're gonna have to**_

I'm one of a, er… "breed" of necromorph that Isaac has taken to calling a "Stalker". Most likely because of our unsettling tendency to utilize "pack-hunting" strategies in taking down our prey… very sneaky. Very difficult to track. But that's not how I am. I'm still… well, not completely sure _why _I just so happened to transform with my humanity intact, if not my memories. I guess we just had luck on our side, Ludwig and I. If any luck whatsoever could come out of being brutally killed and then changed into an undead monstrosity…

…But, anyway, I don't really mind _WHAT _Isaac calls us. I've known the man for over three years now. He's one of the best and only friends I have. Ever the quick-thinking and level-headed individual I've always known him to be. If it weren't for him, I'd probably be dead.

Well… _DEAD _dead, I mean.

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**No, I don't wanna die, so you're gonna have to**_

It was a… relatively simple objective, really. Once we had finally gotten Ellie to trust us (no easy feat, believe me… can't say I blame her, though, Isaac_ WAS _traveling with two necromorphs), Isaac gave me only one task…

"_Wait_… _I think I have a pretty good idea." Isaac said. He turned and looked at his two companions, Ludwig lounging idly against a pillar and myself, eyes downcast as I awkwardly shuffled my feet, and then back up at Ellie and Stross on the second floor of the building, looking down at us expectantly._

"_Hey… Vlach."_

_I looked up at Isaac, a tad surprised. Did whatever little scheme he'd come up with this time involve me, of all people? "…Yes?"_

_He turned and faced me with a smile. "Vlach, why don't you stay with Ellie and Stross? I know you're not one to like being in the middle of the action all the time… and you're a sensible guy, right? This would be a good job for you. Help her keep an eye on Stross."_

"_W-wh-what…?" I stammered. "M-me…?"_

"_WHAT? Isaac!" Ellie shot him an angry glare through the vid-link, and I withered. We barely knew each other, and already we were starting out on the wrong foot. "I can handle this myself, thank you. I do not need… need THAT around right now, too." I saw her motion with the hand holding the Plasma Cutter towards me, from her place up on the second floor._

"_Hey now, Ellie, relax. Don't hurt his feelings. He CAN understand you, y'know." Isaac's brow furrowed, and he glanced back at me again. "Besides, Vlach's a gentle soul. He wouldn't hurt a fly." He gave me a small smile. "Right?"_

"_Um… y-yeah." I managed to squeak out. I hoped to God that nobody had noticed how high-pitched my voice had become. "I'm fine… really."_

_Ellie bit her lip, apparently lost in thought, before finally nodding at Isaac. "…Fine. He can come." Her gaze suddenly became hardened again. "But I swear to God, if he tries ANYTHING-"_

"_Miss… I assure you, I won't." I interrupted. "I'm not like the rest of these… creatures. I promise."_

"_There now, you see? Nothing to worry about from him." Isaac nodded and flipped his helmet back into place with a mechanical clicking sound. "Ludwig and I are heading up to the solar arrays now. We'll get them working again… all you have to do is open the collector panels for us. Take Stross, and keep him safe. Vlach…" He bobbed his head in my direction. "Get on up there. You know what to do." And with that, he turned and started towards the exit, Plasma Cutter at the ready. Ludwig chuckled and gave me one of his mock-salutes before lowering himself to the floor and following Isaac out._

_I looked up, and saw Ellie staring down at me, Stross pacing back and forth behind her. I just shrugged meekly, and started towards a nearby ventilation shaft in the wall, climbing into the broken opening to follow it up onto the second floor._

And I _was _sure I could handle it. It seemed easy enough… as easy as it _would _get, given the situation. A necromorph, standing guard over a couple of humans. It couldn't be _that _bad…

But I never could've predicted what a complete and utter emotional roller coaster this whole experience would turn out to be.

_**Blood is getting hotter, body's getting colder**_

_**I told you once, I'm the only one who holds her**_

Something… went wrong. Very, _very_ wrong. I wish I could just go back in time and stop it all from happening… but we all know that's impossible, wishful thinking. One thing led to another… and it all came to a head at one terrifying moment, a moment I still wish to this day could be taken back. The one moment I lost control of myself… and I snapped.

This is my story. _Our _story.

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**I don't wanna die, so you're gonna have to**_

…I never did like the man.

Even now, I still kind of feel bad admitting that. I mean, I'm a nice guy. I really am, despite my… grotesque appearance. I'm a downright pacifist. I try to get along with everybody, if it's at all possible. (Well… except for those rude scientists that had kept Ludwig and I incarcerated since they'd discovered Isaac's escape shuttle… and _us _aboard it. I was a tad _short _with them, but you'd be, too, if you'd been constantly examined, _studied_, or shoved into stasis for days, even _weeks_ at a time… but, I digress…)

Stross… there was just _something _about him that I didn't like, right from the start. At all. Maybe it was because he was, as Ellie would put it, too "twitchy". Always scuttling around behind us, muttering to himself… I didn't feel he was even the tiniest bit trustworthy, as often as Isaac told us it was just his dementia acting up. He was too unpredictable.

But Isaac _insisted _that we needed him around to know how to destroy the Marker… and I _DO _trust Isaac. Besides, it wasn't so bad, having Ellie around. She was nice company.

At first, I could tell she wasn't exactly… _thrilled _with my presence. She always maintained a careful distance, and I could often catch her glancing at me from the corners of her eyes, making sure that I wasn't about to sneak up behind her and try anything funny. I didn't blame her for a second… if I was her, I'd probably do the very same thing.

But after a little while… I guess she started getting used to me. Maybe even warming up to me a bit… maybe it was only because Stross didn't exactly make for the greatest conversation partner or Isaac and Ludwig were usually too busy running amok around the Sprawl battling necromorphs to talk much… but I still enjoyed it.

_I sat in the corner of the small room, with Stross pacing around back and forth off to my right, as usual, mumbling to himself. Ellie stood a few feet in front of me, her back turned, tinkering with some piece of machinery that I assumed had something to do with the collector panels outside. I guess you could say it was a rare "breather" moment, as we waited there for Isaac and Ludwig to reach the solar arrays and give us the signal… there weren't any necromorphs (aside from myself, of course, but I mean the hostile kind), not yet, anyway, and it was relatively quiet, save for the hums and beeps of machines and Stross' mumbling._

"_So, um… Ellie. That's a nice name." I said suddenly, and almost immediately cursed myself for sounding so awkward and loud in the confined space._

_Ellie jumped and tensed, and I felt guilty about startling her. But she relaxed a moment later, continuing to tinker about with the machine. "…Thanks."_

"_Y-you're welcome…" I rasped. I toyed with the ripped seams of my pants for a moment… and then suddenly, "…Is it short for something?"_

_God, how I wished the floor would just open up and swallow me whole for prying… but to my surprise Ellie sighed and turned away from the machine, slowly walking over to sit in the corner opposite mine._

"…_Alright, you caught me." she said, resting her chin in her hand. "Elizabeth. It's short for Elizabeth. But please, just call me Ellie." She gave me a small, tired smile. "I'm not a big fan of 'Elizabeth'. Too formal-sounding… so I've always told people to just call me Ellie…" Her eyes suddenly seemed to cloud over with thoughtfulness. "It's weird… I almost never tell even ORDINARY people that… Christ, I must REALLY need someone to talk to right now if I'm just blurting this out to anybody around…" She chuckled softly. "…No offense, of course."_

"_None taken." I cocked my head."…It really is a pretty name, though. I like it."_

"_Well… thank you, Vlach." She smiled a little wider. "That's nice to hear… especially in the middle of all this shit." Her expression suddenly became serious again, for a brief moment. "…But promise me you won't tell Isaac or that… other friend of yours about the whole 'Elizabeth' thing. Let's just keep that our little secret… okay?" She glanced over at Stross, who had simply continued pacing around throughout their whole conversation and probably hadn't really been listening._

"_Of course." I laughed softly, nodding. "Cross my heart."_

It was little moments like that, when I could see the wariness and fear start to disappear from her eyes whenever she looked at me… when she started to actually consider me a friend… that made it all worthwhile. Even putting up with Stross.

_**I look inside of myself, and try to find someone else**_

_**Someone who's willing to die just to watch you crying for help**_

And that's basically how it went, our little buddy system. Isaac and Ludwig were usually the ones doing most of the legwork, always throwing themselves into dangerous situations, searching for ways to move us all forward… I definitely appreciate all they did for us. As for myself, I always stuck with Ellie and Stross like I was told. While she helped Isaac and Ludwig whenever she could by hacking into or jamming computer systems and machinery, I kept the necromorphs at bay as best I could (though I have to say that Ellie is a far better fighter than I am), and, of course, kept Stross in line. That definitely wasn't too hard… the man was absolutely _terrified _of me.

But I never once entertained the notion that I might have to be the one to take his life.

_**I know that blood will be spilled**_

_**And if you won't, then I will**_

_**My grave will never be filled, it's either kill or be killed**_

I'm not naïve… I knew going into this that we may have to take a few lives if we wanted to save our own.

It wasn't taking the lives of necromorphs that bothered me – they're little more than hollow, predatory shells now, wearing the faces of dead men. In fact, I'm probably doing them a kindness in ending their lives… putting them out of their misery. It's actually the _sentient _necromorphs like Ludwig and I that you should _really _feel sorry for… we're aware of our dismal afterlives, each and every second of the day, while the regular ones aren't…

No, it wasn't that. It was the possibility of taking a _HUMAN _life that ate away at me. Over three years ago, on the _Ishimura_… I'd promised myself that I would never be like the other necromorphs, that I would never take a human life. Ever.

I had to go back on that promise to protect her.

_**So let Heaven be told**_

_**That some may come, some may go**_

_**Where I'll end up, I dunno**_

_**But I ain't dying alone**_

I'm still not quite sure _exactly _what happened… not from my _own _point of view, that is. Most of the incident itself remains a blur to me… I only know is _why _it happened. I wanted to keep Ellie safe.

We'd spent a lot of time together… not that we had any choice, obviously. But we grew to actually start enjoying each other's company… I mean, in the beginning, I always made sure to be on my best behavior around her… I was already on thin ice with just the fact that I'm a necromorph, and I didn't want to make things any worse than that. But after a while… maybe it was everything we'd been through together, or simply the fact that she had no one else to confide in… her attitude changed towards me, from the wariness she had started out with to neutrality to an eventual friendship. She opened up to me… she even told me about how she came to be trapped there on the Sprawl. What had happened with the rest of her crewmembers… her friend, Kaleb… I was touched that she trusted me that much.

She… she actually _SMILED _at me. Nobody ever smiles at me, ever.

Maybe that's why I started to love her.

_**I keep on asking the question**_

_**Can I be saved by confession?**_

Why would I _do_ this to myself?

It was _far _too soon, it was ridiculous, but… I-I couldn't help myself, dammit!

I'm a necromorph. A _NECROMORPH_, for God's sake!

_**You see this blood on my hands, at least they're still reaching to Heaven**_

I was both afraid of and entranced by these foreign emotions all at once. Entranced because they were something so _new_, something I'd never felt before in my life - at least, I don't _think _I've ever felt them before – and they made me feel warm and content inside. I treasured them as something that I could hold onto deep within, when I'd known little other than pain and misery for these three long years. That I could just look at her, and suddenly, the world didn't seem so dark.

I mean, it wasn't like I was thinking anything… _dirty _about her. That would be sick and very, very wrong of me… it was purely an innocent love. The want to embrace, hold… kiss.

But… I was afraid. I knew I could never tell Ellie about these feelings of mine. I was scared to even _think _about what might happen if I did… I didn't want it to destroy the fragile friendship we'd managed to build. I mean, how the hell would you even _SAY _something like that? "Oh, and by the way, Ellie, a necromorph's fallen in love with you"?

No, of course not… how could she react to _that_?

So I had no choice but to harbor these taboo emotions… hide them away, nurture them in secret. She was a lovely woman… but myself, a monster. She deserved better than something like me… and I damn well knew it. All I could do was admire from afar… that's all I could ever do…

But I silently vowed that I would protect her, with all that I am, and all that I have, no matter what the cost.

My only regret was having to be the one to teach Stross that lesson… to never step over that invisible line… that emotional boundary…

He went after the wrong person that day.

_**I gotta pick up the pieces, I gotta bury 'em deep**_

_**And when you look in my eyes, I'll be the last thing you'll see**_

She was… well, to put it mildly, stunning. No amount of blood or dirt could obscure the beauty of her face… I noticed that from the very beginning. Though, actually… I think it was her eyes that I noticed first. Such a vivid shade of green… I like green. Green's my favorite color. In fact, I'm fairly sure my own eyes used to be green, too… when I was a human. Not the dull, luminous orange they are now. All four of them, the damned things...

And that _smile_… on the rare occasions that she'd let it shine through, even just for a moment… by God, it could light up a room. Angels would envy it! Not to mention that she was just _brimming _with quick wit and seemed to glow with a fierce inner fire and vitality that a meek soul like myself could only _dream_ of. (As demonstrated by the time when we'd first met her and she'd caught Ludwig staring at her chest… I swear, that was the closest I've ever seen Ludwig come to losing his head.) But that _spunk_, that _strength_… she was _PERFECT_. Everything I could ever ask for in a woman and more.

But… I could only look on. She was a forbidden fruit, not to be touched. Only observed, admired. God, if only I were _human _again… then maybe… I could stand a chance with her… but fate has dealt me a cruel hand. She'd never return the feelings.

Hey, I could dream… I could foolishly hope that maybe she'd be able to see past my horrific exterior, to the kind, gentle soul that lives within… and love me back. But I could never just blatantly expect that of her… look at me. A walking corpse with six lethal claws and a skull as jagged as a knife. A necromorph, through and through. No knight in shining armor. And even if I wasn't, well… given the situation, it wouldn't exactly have been the most _appropriate _time for courtship.

But at the very least, I could devote myself to her quietly. _Nobody _could take _THAT _away from me.

And maybe, through my actions, she'd come to realize how I felt about her. Sooner or later.

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**I don't wanna die, so you're gonna have to**_

And as my romantic feelings towards Ellie grew… so did, as I hate to admit, my resentment towards Stross. In the beginning, when I first joined the two of them… he wasn't _terrible_. Just… too skittish for me to feel comfortable around, is all. He mostly just reluctantly trailed along behind Ellie and I, or wandered around, talking to himself… leaving us with all of that free (well, partially free, anyway) time to become closer to one another, which I was grateful for, believe me. And if he started to get too… _belligerent_, in his mentally unstable state, particularly towards Ellie, a quiet growl or a quick snarl was usually enough to send him scurrying into the nearest corner, his eyes filled with a stricken fear.

He was terrified of me. He didn't even want to come within ten feet of me. While ordinarily I'd probably find this distressing, in this case it was probably for the better. For _BOTH _our sakes.

But as time went on, and Stross' hallucinations – as well as his temperament – grew more hostile, more _insane_, I started to become increasingly concerned. It was getting harder and harder to keep him under control. Now we often had to physically _restrain _him to keep him from becoming violent towards us, or to stop him from running off, chasing after hallucinations of whom Isaac later told me were most likely his dead son, the son he had killed along with his own wife in a fit of madness.

That frightened me. We were babysitting a goddamn _MURDERER_? For the love of God, and I had actually felt a little _sorry _for the man!

I… I won't lie. After I… after I found _that _out… I actually thought about killing him, once or twice. He was dangerous, a threat, a _liability_. To me, no… to my dear _Ellie_. But I was so damn _ashamed _of these horrible thoughts that I'd quickly put them out of my mind… I knew very well that I didn't have the guts to go through with such a deed. And I couldn't just _betray _Isaac's trust like that… he _INSISTED _that we needed him. That if Stross died, then our chances of destroying the Marker died with him.

And I've never known Isaac to lie.

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**No, I don't wanna die, so you're gonna have to**_

And finally, after what felt like _years _of running, fighting, and slaughtering to survive, survive and _defend_… there came an unexpected sight that these four eyes hadn't glimpsed in over three years… and would've been more than happy to have _never _seen again.

The USG _Ishimura_. The ship that Ludwig and I had first met Isaac aboard. The ship that we'd been employed and later killed and transformed upon. The ship that our seemingly endless nightmare had all started on. All of it. It was right here, and always _had _been here… right under our noses, all along!

And if we wanted to have any hope of survival whatsoever… we had to venture back aboard.

Isaac tried to put up a brave front, but I could tell he was rattled, seeing that ship again. I could hear it in his voice, the slightest tremor of fear when he spoke. I could understand why… the last time he'd been aboard the _Ishimura_, things had gone very poorly for him. For all of us. Even Ludwig had none of his usual clever remarks or crude jokes to make… he sounded afraid, too… and that was completely unlike him.

I was scared, too… I wished there was _something _I could do to help them, but I just couldn't leave Ellie alone with Stross. There was nothing I'd rather do _less_. At this point, I was totally, completely, and irrevocably in love with her… and I simply couldn't _bear _the thought of Stross possibly trying anything. I just didn't know what he was capable of… he was starting to become more brazen, more detached from reality by the second… and less afraid of me. We'd already had a couple of close calls…

"_Ow!" I heard Ellie cry out behind me. "Dammit, Stross, what the HELL?"_

_I whirled around to see the two of them, standing a few feet away. Ellie was rubbing her right wrist and glowering angrily at Stross, who was nervously wringing his hands and glancing from her to me, and back again._

_Immediately, the more… PRIMAL parts of my brain flew into an overdrive, instantaneously throwing me into a protective fury over what must've happened, what COULD've happened._

_HE HURT HER! I could hear my mind screaming at me. HE HURT HER, HE HURT HER, HE HURT HER! PROTECT! ATTACK! KILL! KILL HIM!_

_I opened my mouth and let out a furious ROAR that echoed around the room like a clap of thunder, causing both Ellie and Stross to jump with surprise. I lowered my head and charged forward with an angry bellow – straight at Stross. He yelped and backed away quickly, turning and scrambling for the nearest sheltered corner, in which he crouched and hugged his knees to his chest, whimpering like a frightened child. I stepped in front of Ellie protectively, snarling and growling at him with enough malice to unsettle even the SENSIBLE parts of my brain. My four eyes blazed with a fiery rage, my thoughts whirling, a chaotic tailspin…_

_That BASTARD! How DARE he touch MY Ellie! I'll show that fucker, I'LL MAKE HIM PAY! I'LL RIP HIM APAR-_

"_Vlach!_

_Her shouting my name broke the train of homicidal thoughts, and I shook my head to clear it, confused… confused and scared. Were those… were those really MY thoughts? Was that actually ME thinking about all those terrible things? My God… I… I wanted to rip him to pieces! I would've done it, too! My God, I…_

"_Vlach… it's okay. Calm down…" I slowly turned and looked down at Ellie, staring up at me with green eyes widened in surprise. Surprise and… fear? Oh no… NO… I… I don't want her to be AFRAID of me… no, NO…_

"_Ellie, I… I'm so sorry, I… I didn't mean to fly off the handle like that… I-I was just scared that he hurt you…" My voice trailed off pitifully, and I lowered my head in shame. How could I be so CARELESS?_ _What if I had just convinced her beyond all doubt that I'm nothing but a monster? I wouldn't even stand a ghost of a chance now…_

"_It's okay, Vlach… it wasn't your fault. Don't beat yourself up over it…" Ellie lifted her wrist and rubbed it again, frowning. "It was probably my fault, anyway… I grabbed his shoulder to push him along and he got startled and bit me. It's no big deal."_

"_He BIT you? Ellie, my God!" I gingerly took her wrist in my claws, being VERY careful not to accidentally cut her with one, and brought it closer to my face to examine it. There, above her bracelet… the flesh was a little red and he could see the faint imprints of tooth-marks, but it hadn't broken the skin, thank God. "Good, it's not bleeding, but… Jesus… I turned my back for one SECOND, the bastard… I'm sorry, Ellie…"_

"_It's okay… you don't have to apologize. Looks like you scared him straight, anyway… wow…" Ellie looked up and smiled weakly. I breathed a mental sigh of relief. She didn't seem to be afraid… there was a sort of look in her eyes… but one that I couldn't quite read. She was a hard nut to crack, this one… just one of her many qualities that I admired so…_

…_I suddenly realized that I was still holding her wrist, and quickly let it go. "S-sorry…" I stuttered awkwardly. I looked down and shuffled my feet. Oh, curse me…_

_Ellie giggled, reaching up and patting me on the shoulder before stepping past… and all worry about my earlier wicked thoughts disappeared at her touch. I was so happy, so relieved…! God, she was so… so WONDERFUL! And I couldn't help but notice… that she no longer flinched away at my own touch. Maybe… that was a good sign…_

_I followed along behind her, her loyal guardian necromorph, and reluctantly motioned at Stross to follow. He was still rocking back and forth in his corner, staring at me with terror-filled eyes, and wasn't looking like he was going to budge… especially not for ME._

"_Uh, Ellie…? He's not moving for me…" I spoke up, and she turned and sighed, rolling her eyes._

"_Get a move on, Stross. We don't have all day... Vlach's not gonna hurt you, I promise." When Stross STILL wouldn't stand up, she shrugged and added, "…Or, we COULD just leave you here for the not-so-nice necromorphs to find…"_

_A few seconds passed, and Stross sent one more terrified look my way before finally getting to his feet and scurrying off ahead of Ellie, as far away from me as he could manage._

It was recalling unpleasant memories like those that only made me want to stay with her _more_. I mean, what if Stross managed to get his hands on a weapon or something…? What if next time, it _wasn_'_t _just a little bite? What if it was _worse_?

I know that she remembered them, too… which is why I was incredulous when she told me to join Isaac and Ludwig on the _Ishimura_.

"_Vlach… I think that… maybe you should go with them, too."_

_I turned and stared at her, in utter shock. She returned my gaze steadily, bathed in the orange light cast by the tram's holographic displays. Did… I just hear her correctly? Did she REALLY just suggest that? ME, leaving HER, alone… with STROSS?_

_I looked away from her, towards the imposing steel doors that my two friends had disappeared through not five minutes before, and then back at her again. "Ellie… you know I can't do that." I said softly, moving towards her. "What if the necromorphs start showing up here? Not to mention that I can't just leave you alone with… HIM." I pointed a claw at Stross, sitting a few feet away, hunched over and whispering frantically about the "steps" to himself, whatever the hell those were…_

"…_I'm sure he won't be a problem… we haven't had any… hiccups with him for a while." Ellie said, glancing at Stross. She looked back up at me with worried eyes. "You heard how nervous Isaac sounded… I know he tried not to let it show, but he didn't exactly do the greatest job of it, looks like… for God's sake, even Ludwig wasn't looking so good…" She sighed before continuing, "I really think Isaac could use the moral support right now… from the two friends he actually made when he was aboard that damned ship… maybe it'd do him a little good to be backed up by the same partners he had there three years ago, y'know…?"_

_I had to admit, it DID make sense, but I couldn't just go back on my word for a little logic. "I know, but… Ellie… I-I promised Isaac I would stay with you… I-I can't just…"_

"_Vlach…" She rested a hand on my shoulder, and I immediately stopped talking. "You're very sweet, but… I think I can take care of myself for at least a little while, don't you think? I mean, I'd survived that long without you BEFORE we met… right?" She chuckled. "I'm sure Twitchy over there won't be too hard to handle, after everything I've been through."_

_God, I felt so damn reluctant, and I almost wanted to resist… I'd been TOLD to stay with her, and by now it had become FAR more than just an order to me… it had become a personal MISSION. But still, I found myself asking, "A-are… are you sure about this…?"_

"_Of course I am." She smiled. "More sure of this than anything." Her lovely green eyes sparked with that familiar determination and fire that I loved so much, and I swear… I probably would've kissed her right then if only I'd been able to. She was brave, she was strong… I knew deep down that she could handle things for a little while, surely…_

_I bowed my head, the conflicting cogs in my brain turning away before I finally gave a slow, deliberate nod. "…Alright. I'll go. It's… it's only for a little while, I guess…" I sighed, and then carefully reached up to grasp her shoulders, as firmly as I could without hurting her. I stared directly into her eyes, unmoving and unblinking, and rasped, "But please, Ellie, please… I'm begging you… stay safe."_

_She returned my gaze unfalteringly, when other people might have cowered away. "…I will."_

_I reluctantly released my grip, slowly turning and exiting the darkened tram car, heading towards the doors I'd seen Isaac and Ludwig enter through. I felt miserable. I was walking into a dangerous and most likely emotionally taxing situation that I wasn't completely sure I'd return from in one piece, and not only that, I was leaving the one person that I loved more than anything else in the world alone with the person that I inwardly DESPISED. If there was any light at the end of the tunnel at all, I sure wasn't seeing much of it._

_Well… I guess getting to be with Ellie again was enough of a light for me._

_Before I stepped through those doors, I turned and gave Ellie one last mournful look through the window of the tram… she felt so damn far away already. I hope she saw the love in my eyes… the concern I have for her well-being, before I turned and left… I wanted so badly for her to understand that my feelings for her stretched far beyond those of just a friend… even if I could never tell her directly…_

_She nodded encouragement at me, and gave me a sad little wave goodbye. I waved back… and stepped back aboard after my friends, ready to relive the nightmare._

Looking back, knowing now what was yet to come… I only wish I'd tried a little harder to stay.

_**Blood is getting hotter, body's getting colder**_

_**I told you once, I'm the only one who holds her**_

And there we were again… "our old haunt", as Ludwig put it. The same endless network of geometric hallways that we had wandered as newly-transformed necromorphs for God knows long before fate finally dropped Isaac in our midst. Only now… everything was dark and still, covered in tarps and taped-down plastic, illuminated by the glow of black-lights… but no amount of plastic or antiseptic cleaners could cover up the countless horrible memories. Every step we took seemed to bring some new terror back into our minds, more and more unpleasant experiences rekindled until we were all quite literally jumping at our own shadows… Isaac, especially. I hope our presence helped him keep calm… even through the dementia… at least, somewhat.

And, of course, it didn't take long for the necromorphs to start swarming into the ship after us… now it really _WAS _the _Ishimura _we remembered.

But that wasn't even the worst of it – at least, not to _me_. Even as we slogged onwards in our mission to ultimately reactivate the gravity tethers, and I sliced through limb after bloody necromorphic limb without complaint, I became increasingly anxious, not because of the situation at hand but because I just couldn't stop thinking about Ellie. She was constantly on my mind... was she okay? Was she safe? Was that bastard Stross trying anything on her? I'd allow myself to get so bogged down by these thoughts that Isaac had to tell me more than once to stay focused. I'm sure he was probably getting annoyed with my wandering mind, as time went on…

Occasionally… images of her being horrendously maimed, even _killed _would flood into my mind, threatening to overwhelm me… I came dangerously close to emotional breakdowns several times because of them, and either Isaac or Ludwig would usually have to wind up calming me down, keep me from thinking about it, assure me that Ellie would be just fine… I think they were starting to realize that I'd developed feelings for her at this point…

But she _wouldn_'_t _be okay, she _WOULDN_'_T_! At some point… I think it was after we'd restored the gravity centrifuge and were heading back to the tram, but I'm not completely sure… Ellie called us… it was Stross, and it was getting _bad_…

"_You guys… Stross is starting to worry me. Listen…"_

_My head jerked up at the sound of her voice. Ellie! God, I was so relieved to hear her again, safe and alive… at least, at the moment, she was… but my twinge of happiness quickly turned into fear as I suddenly heard Stross talking in the background, but not to Ellie… he was talking to his "son"… oh GOD, those damned hallucinations again…_

"_I would never… I would NEVER… but son, daddy's not a murderer! I would never hurt you and mommy…"_

_I was chilled to the bone; I KNEW I shouldn't have left her alone with him, dammit! "Ellie, I-"_

"_Stross, he's not real!" Ellie interrupted, too preoccupied with him to hear me._

"_Yes he is!" Stross barked adamantly. "You can't see him because you haven't taken the steps! The needle will make you see! Step three! STEP THREE!"_

_Panic was starting to rise up inside me, and starting to rise FAST. "I-Isaac, what does he mean 'step three'? What is he talking abo-?"_

"_Stross! Put down the screwdriver! STROSS!" I was cut off by a burst of static, a muffled shout, and the transmission ended, leaving our little trio standing there in the dark, the silence almost too much to bear…_

"…_Shit." Ludwig wheezed._

…I panicked. I quickly dissolved into a pathetic, hysterical _MESS_, sobbing and screeching and frantically pacing around with my skull clutched in my claws, convinced that she was badly hurt, or _WORSE_! Isaac and Ludwig had to scramble to calm me down… they didn't want my wailing to attract the attention of other nearby necromorphs, I think. But it wasn't working very well… they knew very well I wouldn't rest until I knew whether or not Ellie was okay… so they had no choice but to drag my blubbering ass along back to the tram so we could move on with the mission. We'd barely been back on the thing for two minutes before a hiss of static announced contact with Isaac's com-link…

"_Ow… dammit, that hurts…"_

_The sound of her voice jolted me to my feet so quickly that I'd momentarily forgotten how tall I was, and nearly wound up bashing my head into the ceiling of the tram car. "ELLIE! Thank GOD you're alive! God, oh GOD…"_

"_Hey, Vlach…" I heard her chuckle faintly. "Missing me, I guess?"_

"_Shit, Ellie, are you okay?" Isaac asked. "What happened with Stross?"_

_She sighed irritably into the com-link. "Yeah, I'm fine. The bastard bit me again, is all… he got me good this time, though. I'm still bleeding… Christ…"_

_My four eyes widened with disbelief, a low growl rumbling up from my chest. What? WHAT? What… the… HELL…?_

"_Goddammit…" Isaac cursed. "Where is he now? What's he doing?"_

"_Well, nothing now…" Ellie replied. "He's stopped talking, and he won't look at me… but earlier he was whimpering and saying that the 'monster' would come after him again for doing it… I think… he was talking about Vla-"_

_Anything else she said was drowned out by the vicious roar that suddenly tore its way from my throat, ear-splittingly loud in the enclosed interior of the tiny tram car. I turned and swung my right hand in a hellish fury, raking my claws across the steel wall and leaving behind three deep, jagged marks in a shower of sparks and squealing metal. Another roar and I swung the other hand, leaving three MORE marks, and I kept swinging and swinging until Ludwig intervened, grabbing my wrists from behind and forcing them behind my back, holding me steadily despite my furious snarling and struggling._

"_Whoa there, Vlachy-boy…" Ludwig said slowly. "It's all good, man, it's all good, she's fine, relax, RELAX… we're cool, we're cool…"_

_My only response was to bash my heavy skull against the wall, once, twice, until a small dent was left, my snarling reduced now to frustrated sobs mingling with little barks of rage. "Goddammit… GodDAMMIT! I SHOULD BE THERE, I… I…!" I couldn't even finish the sentence. I could only let loose another low, keening cry and rest my "forehead" against the wall miserably, my body shuddering._

"…_Jesus, Vlach…" Isaac breathed._

"_Vlach, my God… I'm okay… don't do that to yourself, it's not your fault…" said Ellie. She sounded… genuinely CONCERNED… and that started to calm me, if only just a little. My body stopped shuddering, and Ludwig tentatively released my wrists. I sank into a sitting position on a row of seats, burying my face in my claws. All eyes were on me, I could FEEL them… I couldn't believe I'd just allowed myself to lose control like that AGAIN, and not only did Ellie hear it all, but my two best friends had to SEE it, too. I just… I couldn't help it! I felt terrible about it all, but it was just… Ellie… I cared so much about her… what the HELL was WRONG with me…? I moved my claws and raised my eyes to the mess I'd left there on the tram wall. It was a wreck; the metal was scratched to the point that I'd nearly shredded straight through it, the advertisements that had been stuck to the wall before now unreadable. Not to mention the dent, too…_

_I lowered my gaze in shame… and caught sight of my claws. I gasped; the metal… hadn't exactly been kind to them. They were chipped and ragged-looking… even cracked in some areas. One tip, snapped off… I let them fall limp into my lap, one word echoing over and over in my head - MONSTER._

"…_Vlach… are you okay…?" Ellie asked, breaking the silence. "Please, answer me…"_

"_I'm… fine." I finally managed to rasp. "I'm… calm again now…"_

_She sighed in relief through the com-link. "Good… just… don't scare me like that, okay?"_

"…_We're… we're heading to the Bridge now. We'll reactivate the gravity tethers from there." Isaac said, nudging us all back to the task at hand._

"_Well, good." Ellie responded. "They're swarming in through a hole in the Medical Deck, looks like… at least you won't have to go through there."_

_A computerized voice suddenly rang out, tinny and reverberating around us. "UNEXPECTED OBSTRUCTION AHEAD. SHUTTING DOWN. WELCOME TO THE MEDICAL DECK."_

_The three of us could only stare at each other in utter disbelief. Not one ounce of luck to be found anywhere on this damned ship. ANYWHERE!_

"…_Crap." Both Isaac and Ludwig said in unison._

_I sighed, and buried my face in my claws again. I guess my reunion with Ellie was going to have to wait even LONGER… figures._

And I'd thought the _earlier _parts of the ship had been bad… none of them even _remotely _compared to what lay in store for us on the Medical Deck. They clearly hadn't really gotten around to giving the place a thorough scrub-down… black-lights set up everywhere showed us that. All of the blood, all of the messages scrawled on the walls by desperate _Ishimura _crewmembers in their final moments of life, every last goddamned one of them contained a memory… laid out in stark smears of white before us. Hell, Ludwig and I… we were lit up like moving lanterns under those lights. It was terrible… and I could see it eating away at Isaac, though he tried to hide it. I knew it was because of Nicole… the one who haunted him. We knew about her. It was hard to _NOT _know, really.

It was all just as we remembered it… only with an absence of corpses this time around. It actually didn't take us _too _long to reach the Bridge, much to my relief; probably because Ludwig and I had frequented this area those three years ago. We carved a path through swarms of necromorphs to reach the Captain's Nest, and finally reactivated the gravity tethers. The ship rocked and swayed beneath our feet, and Tiedemann made it _very_ clear he wasn't happy… but we hardly batted an eyelid at that, it was time to go. The awful anxiety that had been welling up inside me the entire time at last began to ebb… we were finally leaving that nightmarish ship! I would get to see Ellie again!

…If only I'd known that the _true _nightmare was only just beginning…

The three of us somehow managed to cram into a single escape pod, Isaac in the one control seat and Ludwig and I tightly wedged to either side, seeing as the thing probably wasn't intended to carry multiple passengers. We were finally off, escaping the _Ishimura_… not unlike three years before. But then…

"_EJECTION SEQUENCE INITIATED. LAUNCH IN THREE… TWO… ONE… LAUNCH."_

_The escape pod shuddered, and we were all pushed backwards as it propelled forward, leaving the Ishimura behind us. I dug my claws into Isaac's chair, anxiously peering out the front window, though there wasn't much to see in the relative darkness. Soon now… soon we'd be back down on the Sprawl… then I could go back to being with Ellie, just as I wanted to be from the beginning… protecting her from that MADMAN… I narrowed my eyes; even just THINKING about that crazy bastard made me seethe. Picturing him creeping up on her, BITING her, HURTING her with those filthy, murdering hands of his… I dug my claws even deeper into the chair with a soft hiss. Stross would PAY when I saw him again. He would cower and beg for mercy and wish he'd never even so much as LOOKED at my Ellie the wrong way…_

"_We're away!" Isaac spoke into his com-link. "Ellie? Did you make it?"_

"_Isaac! We've crossed the track… but we're coming in hot!" Ellie quickly responded._

_Hearing her again, I was happy. It took my mind away from those cruel, wicked thoughts that didn't feel like my own, reminded me that I'd be with her again soon, in just a little while… and then I heard the voice of the person that I wanted to hear least of all…_

"_I just need you to see what I see, Ellie… I promise it won't hurt…"_

_My eyes widened, and everything suddenly felt colder, even though my body was dead and incapable of feeling cold… Stross, that fucker! "No… NO…"_

"_Stross, put down the screwdriver! NO!" There was a scream – Ellie's scream – and the com-link went silent._

"_Stross! Dammit, NO!" Isaac shouted. And then immediately, I could feel it – all attention turned to me, and my now-mounting hysteria._

"_SHIT, Vlach, Vlach, stay cool, stay cool, don't freak out, DON'T FREAK OUT…!" Ludwig said quickly, putting his hands on my shoulders. I was struggling where I sat, and the tiny interior of the escape pod was the only thing preventing me from flying into an uncontrollable rage. I bayed like a wild animal, feeling restrained, trapped - and VERY ready to tear Stross apart. There could be no denying it now… Ellie was in VERY real danger, and I should've been there to keep her safe! Goddammit, I'd promised, promised Isaac, promised MYSELF! And if Stross… did the UNTHINKABLE… I shrieked again, even louder, thrashing where I sat. I had to get out, I HAD TO GET OUT! FOR ELLIE!_

"_VLACH, FOR GOD'S SAKE, GET A HOLD OF YOURSE-!" Isaac was cut off by the escape pod giving a sudden violent lurch, throwing both Ludwig and I roughly backwards. "PROXIMITY ALERT" appeared on the display in front of us, followed by the computer's voice, "PROXIMITY WARNING. IMPACT DETECTED."_

"_ShitshitshitshitSHIIIT!" yelped Ludwig. "How the fuck do ya steer this thing-?"_

_The displays turned red, and now the words "GUIDANCE SYSTEM MALFUNCTION" appeared, the computer repeating them seconds later… and then, "ALL GUIDANCE SYSTEMS OFFLINE."_

"…_SHIT!" Isaac yelled._

"_AIN'T THAT A GODDAMN UNDERSTATEMENT?" Ludwig yelled back._

"_BRACE FOR IMPACT…"_

…That was the last thing I remembered , being in the escape pod… a haze of insane rage, the pod veering out of control, and then, nothingness… at least, until I opened my eyes…

_At first, all I could make out were the dim, insubstantial outlines of my surroundings… but as the world slowly began to slide back into focus, I realized with a start that I was sprawled out on the metal floor of some… industrial mining area, it looked like? I couldn't really tell. I was face-down, but, well… my wide, splayed-out ribcage more or less propped me up at an awkward angle. I groaned, lifting my head to get a look around… and I noticed two others a short distance away, also laid out on the floor… wait… MY FRIENDS! There was Isaac, splayed out on his back, and behind him, Ludwig, slumped on his side, curled up like a dead rat. What… what had HAPPENED to us? Why were we…?_

_And then I caught sight of the burning wreckage in front of us, what remained of our escape pod, and it all rushed right back – the Ishimura, the gravity tethers, getting into the pod, everything, and… ELLIE! My GOD, where was she? O-oh my God… STROSS! STROSS WAS ATTACKING HER! MOTHER OF GOD, HOW LONG HAVE WE BEEN UNCONSCIOUS?_

"_Isaac! Ludwig! Wake up! Wake up right now!" I screeched, pushing myself up on my knees. They both remained unnaturally still; no response whatsoever._

_My eyes widened in horror. Oh God… NO… what if… what if they weren't unconscious at all? What if they were both DEAD? No, no, not my friends… please, God, NO…_

"_ISAAC! LUDWIG!" I screeched louder. I hobbled to my feet, rushing over to their still forms. "GOD, PLEASE, DON'T BE DEAD, WAKE UP, PLEASE…!"_

_I was just about to kneel down to see if Isaac was still breathing when I saw him give a jerk, and heard him groan beneath his helmet. He slowly sat up, shaking his head, as if to clear it. "…Vlach? Holy fuck… what happened? …Wait… SHIT, the escape pod…!"_

_There was another groan, and Ludwig lifted his head beside us. "Huh…? Shit, what'd I miss, what'd I miss…? Somethin' happen…?"_

_As happy as I was that my two closest friends had both survived the crash without serious injury, in my eyes there were absolutely NO reasons to celebrate right now. Ellie's LIFE was at risk, for God's sake! THAT'S what mattered! We had NO TIME to waste!_

"_Yeah, something happened, but guys, listen, you have to get up, we have to go now, RIGHT NOW!" I was talking a mile a minute, gesturing frantically with my claws and pacing back and forth with all of my pent-up anxiety. "Ellie, remember? She's in trouble, BIG trouble, w-we have to get to her NOW, I have to get to her-"_

_I was startled by a sudden burst of static, and lo and behold, there she was, my dear Ellie herself, projected through Isaac's RIG, right in front of us… the "trouble" clear as day._

"_ISAAC!" she screamed, and I froze. Every last horror I'd ever witnessed, both in my worst nightmares and in the LIVING nightmare that was my entire FUCKING existence for these last three HELLISH years… all of it was utterly insignificant when I was faced with the image of the woman I loved… being pinned beneath a PSYCHOPATH._

_Stross was kneeling on top of her, his face twisted into a terrible mask of bloody glee. He held something long and pointed in his right hand, angled downwards towards Ellie's face, and she was gripping the wrist tightly, trying to push it away… the screwdriver, the goddamn SCREWDRIVER!_

"_Shhh… it's gonna be okay, I PROMISE…" he whispered to the struggling Ellie, and there could be no denying it now; the man was a certifiable raving LUNATIC, completely beyond all hope of salvation... "This won't hurt a bit…"_

_It felt like I'd been rooted to the spot; all I could do is just stand there and sway, watching with horrified eyes at the scene unfolding on the vid-link, in a complete state of shock. "No… nonononoNO…"_

"_Cross your heart and hope to dieee…" Stross sang out, and we all knew damn well what came after THAT…_

"_STROSS, NOOO!" I howled. This couldn't be happening, THIS JUST COULDN'T BE HAPPENING, IT COULDN'T…_

"…_Stick a needle in your eyeee!" he finished, plunging the screwdriver towards Ellie's eye… and that's when the vid-link transmission ended._

"_STROSS, GODDAMMIT!" Isaac shouted._

_I lifted my head and loosed a roar more powerful, more primal, more BESTIAL than any other before it, an explosive force all its own that split the air and sent my two friends stumbling away from me… maybe they knew there'd be no holding me back now, and they were damn RIGHT! There would be no more reasoning, no more holding me back; that ANIMAL had threatened the life of my loved one, and this time, there wouldn't be a single SCRAP of mercy spared for him._

"_ELLIIIE!" I roared again, and then I was off. I sprinted across the platform and vaulted myself over the broken railing, past the escape pod's wreckage and onto the lower level of the room. I hardly let the clumsy landing stop me; in the blink of an eye I was up and heading straight towards the first ventilation shaft I laid eyes upon._

"_VLACH! HOLY SHIT, WHERE THE FUCK'RE YA GOIN'?" I faintly heard Ludwig shout after me, but I ignored him; I was beyond listening at this point. All that mattered to me right now was Ellie, Ellie, ELLIE. Ellie, my LOVE…_

_I pried the tips of my claws into the edges between the grate covering the opening of the vent and the surrounding wall, and tore it off with more ease than I would've thought possible for myself. It was thrown aside, forgotten, and I dove headlong into that vent and started climbing, disappearing into the darkness within seconds. I had to find them. I would scour every goddamned inch of this hellhole and fight an ARMY of necromorphs if I had to, but I WOULD find them, find them BOTH._

_And by God, I would make that fucker PAY._

…Ordinarily… those creeping thoughts of brutality would've terrified me… I mean, I'm a kind soul… how could I ever even _consider _doing such a thing?

But with the life of my forbidden crush dangling by a thread, just beyond my reach… Hell, I didn't even have any way of knowing whether or not she was still _alive_ by then… I guess I almost welcomed them…

… but I could only pray to God that I would find her in time.

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**I don't wanna die, so you're gonna have to**_

I don't think I've ever moved faster than I did when I was scrambling through those vents. I've never been a fan of dark, enclosed spaces… so utilizing small ventilation shafts for travel had always bothered me, especially since my wide ribcage sometimes made it _very _difficult for me to move quickly… but all of my trivial fears were pushed aside for that. The motivation to be brave was stronger than it'd ever been.

Ellie had that effect on me.

_I propelled myself through the winding network of ventilation shafts as fast as I could possibly move, plowing through anything that got in my way. None of it mattered, NOTHING mattered. The only thing on my mind right now was my dearest Ellie, alone and trapped somewhere with a MONSTER… I had to find her before it was too late, before she was taken away… GodDAMMIT, I'd KNOWN it was a bad idea to go with Isaac and Ludwig, that Stross was a menace and it was a death sentence to be alone with him, but I'd allowed Ellie to talk me into leaving, anyway… if only I'd been more STUBBORN, I should've downright REFUSED to leave her… and now Ellie could be hurt. If she was DEAD, oh mother of GOD, if she was DEAD… I'd never forgive myself, NEVER. I'd want to die, I couldn't BEAR to live without her, I wouldn't even DESERVE to go on with this half-life I lead… but no, I couldn't think that way. I WOULD find her in time, I WOULD, I'd be DAMNED if I'd let that lunatic snatch away the one beautiful, shining star I had to cling to in this godforsaken universe…_

_The interior of the ventilation system was dark, very dark, and with my ordinary vision I had to rely mostly on touch and the occasional glow of a passing light source to guide me around. This was no good, NO GOOD, if I kept going this way I'd never make it to them in time, and I'd still be crawling around through the vents while Ellie could be… I didn't even want to THINK about it. So I had no choice but to try out an alternative method…_

_I closed my two foremost eyes, the natural ones I'd been born with, with pupils, leaving only the upper pair opened, and suddenly, I saw the world differently. Everything appeared to me in shades of black and gray, plunging me into tunnels of shadowy indistinctness. I'd always known of this… NATURAL necromorph ability, but I'd never wanted to use it… it made me feel like such an ANIMAL, but desperate times called for desperate measures… through these eyes, I saw as a… "feral" necromorph viewed the world around it. I could "see" and track the heat produced by any living creature's circulatory system, even through walls and other obstructions… not unlike some species of snake. In this darkness… it was my only chance of getting to Ellie and Stross in time._

…_I'm not sure whether or not it was instinct that had led me in the right direction, or just sheer dumb luck on my part, but about a minute later, a faint sound reached me, and I froze. Could that be…?_

_I heard the sound again, and this time, there could be no mistaking it; it was a scream, a HUMAN scream. A FEMALE scream. It had to be her, it HAD to be! ELLIE!_

_I turned and immediately threw myself down an opening to the right, heading in the direction the scream sounded like it'd come from. Maybe there was still time. Maybe I still had the chance to save her._

_I just had to keep moving and pray that those screams hadn't been her last._

I raced through that dark shaft faster than I'd ever moved before, driven by the mad desire to protect, to _fight _for what I cared about, feelings that I'd never had to push me before. I had hope. Blind hope, surely… but hope nonetheless.

_**Words turn into blood, and the blood keeps on pouring**_

_**From every pore, I wipe it off 'cause this just could be the moment**_

I still remember it… that moment, when I finally reached them…

_Faster and faster I forced myself to move, dragging myself forward with my ragged claws, so fast they created tiny bursts of sparks with every impact into the metal. The screams were getting louder, and now I could hear faint talking… talking, no. More like RAVING._

_A soft orange smudge suddenly appeared at the center of my vision, contrasting sharply against the monotony of the black and gray. Was that…? I moved closer and the smudge gradually developed into two distinct humanoid shapes, both pulsating with tangles of orange light; definitely alive. One was on top of the other, and the lower one appeared to be struggling… THEM! That was THEM!_

_I pulled myself down that final stretch, so glad to see that Ellie was still alive, so GLAD, but she was still in mortal danger, and now I could feel the fury beginning to replace the panic, pure, raw, animalistic FURY. Stross would pay, he would PAY, HE WOULD PAY!_

_There was light; the entrance to this vent was in sight now, just feet ahead of me. I opened my mouth and shrieked my rage, so loud I KNEW that those two would be able to hear it, loud and clear…!_

_My thick skull collided with the grate covering the shaft's entrance, and it exploded outwards, clattering across the floor of the room beyond. The light stung my sensitive eyes, and I opened the REAL ones again – there they were at last. Stross, still kneeling on top of Ellie, only now he was turned around and staring right at me, wide-eyed, shocked that I was there. My gaze flew to his hand – he was gripping the screwdriver from before, but now it came with something extra… an eyeball, impaled straight through the middle like some sort of grisly ornament. A GREEN eyeball._

_Such a vivid shade of green…_

_I stood – and I roared._

That… was the last thing I can remember. At least… remember by _myself_. And I know why.

Because that's when I finally _snapped_.

_**Now someone's gotta die, and I'm my only opponent**_

I have… no personal recollections of the deed itself. Everything I know about it… it was told to me by Ellie. I _told_ her to tell me about it. Every ghastly detail.

She didn't want to… she was worried that knowing _exactly _what I'd done would only haunt me mercilessly, and that I'd be happier not knowing how it happened. But I had to know… I don't know why. I just had to.

I had to know what the _feral _me looked like.

'_**Cause I won't watch my baby cry, so I keep on just going**_

This time… it isn't my _own_ memory. All of this… this is what Ellie told me…

I… I was across that room before Stross even had time to blink, on him like the Devil himself. I grabbed him in my claws, digging them into his torso. I _threw _him, and he hit the wall like I'd thrown a rag-doll. Like he weighed no more than a _feather_…

While all Ellie could do is sit up and scurry backwards against the far wall, heart pounding, watching what was about to unfold in absolute shock through the one eye she still had. Vlach, one of the sweetest souls she'd ever met… now the most terrifying _demon _she'd ever seen.

I was beyond all reasoning now.

_**Am I a man or a beast?**_

_**It's Mother Nature, at least**_

He hadn't even had the chance to move before I was on him again, seizing him by the throat, lifting him, slamming his skull back against the wall. _Feral _necromorphs never did that; there had to be _some _sort of sentience left there, _somewhere_, but it was lost underneath layers of madness and hatred and the burning, _mindless _compulsion to _KILL_. I'm sure that if you were to look in my eyes right then, you wouldn't see _ME_ – you'd see nothing but the hollow, predatory eyes of any other necromorph.

Now those eyes bored into Stross', as he choked and gasped and struggled, his feet dangling above the ground…

_**Watch humanity cease, 'cause it's our human disease**_

He tried to fight back. He gritted his teeth, lifted the screwdriver and tried to jab it into my _own _eye socket. The click of the steel tip digging into my bony face didn't even remotely phase me; I'd be _damned _if he'd make me see his fucking "steps", too! My free hand flew up, grabbed his right wrist, and _squeezed_.

Ellie said she could _hear_ his carpal bones snapping from across the room… and I'm glad I have no memory of those sounds first-hand… the cracking and popping as his wrist broke, Stross' screams of pain, dropping the screwdriver and Ellie's eye…

_**You gotta kill when you gotta kill, yeah, that's what they say**_

…The soft, wet ripping sounds of his flesh as my grip tightened like a vice and I _pulled_… pulled his right arm clean out of the socket, and off of his body altogether… it could only be a blessing that I can't remember _those _screams of agony and fear, or have felt the hot gush of blood fountain across my ribcage and my pants…

_**And I can't go against God's will, you'd better pray**_

And Ellie behind me, forgotten in my mindless rage… forced to watch in stunned silence as I tore this man apart, too scared to cry out… wondering if when I was finished with him… whether or not I'd be able to recognize her… if I'd come after _her_ next… if she'd have to cut the limbs off of _another _best friend to save herself…

Stross continued to struggle weakly in my grasp, screaming, slowly growing paler as his blood drained from his severed arm… I snarled. My prey had _no _business still breathing!

I raked my claws across his chest, then carved into the hollow of his abdominal wall… how _easily _my claws must've sliced through his skin, his muscle… spilling his entrails onto the floor at our feet…

'_**Cause I'm an angel, a demon**_

A wave of crimson blood splashed down, soaking the floor, and yet _still _this bastard clung to life… he wheezed, still trying to scream, but no sound would pass his trembling lips… his eyes were starting to roll back, but his breathing _infuriated _me, how _dare _he breathe, _HOW DARE HE_...!

I'd stop that breathing for _good_…

_**Yeah, I'm Hell and I'm Heaven**_

I released his throat ever so slightly, just enough to press the sharpened edges of my claws against his soft, yielding throat, so _vulnerable_… and tear straight through it.

A burst of blood spattered across the front of my body from his severed arteries, and I released him. He was dead, dead before he'd even hit the floor, _finally _dead like he should've been all along! I tossed back my head and roared over his limp corpse, rejoicing in my hideously primal glee that my foe was gone at last…

_**I'm everything you couldn't be, now you believe in the Devil**_

…And it was all over. Ellie couldn't believe what she'd just seen. Vlach… the kind, compassionate Vlach that she _knew_… had just torn Stross to pieces without any effort whatsoever. It was horrible. It felt like an eternity she'd sat there and watched… but it'd taken no more than a few seconds.

She felt sick, sick and afraid for her life at what she was about to try, but she got to her feet anyway, running over to the enraged necromorph.

She couldn't allow this to go on any longer.

_**I gotta pick up the pieces, I gotta bury 'em deep**_

_**And when the dirt hits your coffin, just go to sleep**_

…And that's how it happened… that's what Ellie revealed to me. I guess it doesn't really matter after all that I can't remember performing the deed myself… just knowing what I did _period _is more horrifying than anything you could possibly imagine. Like overpowering emotional baggage that you'll never be able to shake…

And what's _worse_, I'd exposed _ELLIE _to it all. _Now _she'd seen what a monster I truly am… there was no hope. I may have saved her life, but she'd hate me, anyway. No one would ever care for a necromorph… she'd never love me.

Coming down from my bestial high… that's one of the most profound memories I have…

"_Vlach! VLACH! STOOOP!"_

_Maybe it was her voice that finally broke through to me… the REAL me… because suddenly I was back in my right state of mind. My bellowing choked off… I blinked in confusion, and tried shaking my head to clear it, but that didn't help me any… and suddenly I found myself being pulled backwards by the hand, by Ellie. I stared down at her, completely bewildered. She was staring up at me, her eye wide and scared… oh God, her EYE, her ONE EYE… what had happened? Why did she look so afraid? Why couldn't I REMEMBER any of this…?_

"_Ellie, my GOD… what the…? What happened? I…" I looked down, and noticed something, something horrible; I was covered in blood, blood FAR too fresh to be my own, long dried, staining my flesh… this blood was still dripping bright crimson from my claws, my stretched ribcage, it soaked my pants, it was EVERYWHERE… and were those… bits of TISSUE caught in my claws…? The blood… it was getting on Ellie, and I didn't like that… wait… all this blood… it could only mean…_

…_Oh no…_

…_I slowly moved to turn around, but Ellie tugged hard on my hand, trying to get me to face her._

"_Vlach…" she whispered. "Don't look… please, don't look… it's better if you don't see…"_

_"Don't see"…? Don't see WHAT? I had a creeping, God-awful feeling I KNEW what she didn't want me to see, but still, I HAD to look… I didn't want to look away from her beautiful face, but I HAD to know what I'd done…_

_Oh no… no… nonononoNO…_

"_Why? What did I…?" I turned around… and I saw Stross. No, wait… what was LEFT of Stross._

_NO. NONONONONO!_

Too late… now I'd _seen_ the atrocity I'd committed.

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**I don't wanna die, so you're gonna have to**_

I couldn't move, I couldn't blink. I couldn't _anything. _All I could do is stare down at the lovely _mess _I'd made of Stross' body, not wanting to believe that _I _could've done _that_…

_It was a goddamn BLOODBATH. As much as these eyes have seen in these past three years… none of it even seemed to REMOTELY compare to my latest bit of handiwork right here, something I couldn't even remember DOING, why, I just didn't know…_

_Stross lay slumped on his side, glassy eyes staring up at nothing, his expression still frozen in a silent scream of terror… the flesh of his throat torn down to the faintest glimpse of white bone… his clothing had changed colors from white to crimson, quite obviously shredded across the chest by CLAWS… his abdomen had been ripped open, most of his viscera now strewn about the stone floor in glistening tangles. Everywhere I looked, there was blood, pools of it, OCEANS of it, on the floor, the walls, practically BURNING its redness into my eyes… accusingly… Vlach, YOU did this, YOU're the murderer now, YOU're the monster! Necromorph, NECROMORPH!_

"_Oh my GOD… my GOD, NO… I-I couldn't have… NONONO…" I pulled away from Ellie and in seconds I had retreated to the farthest corner of the room, hugging my knees to my chest… I could try to distance myself from my crime as much as I'd like, but there was no escaping the blood on my hands, no, my CLAWS, my walking CORPSE… STROSS' blood… the blood of my VICTIM…_

"_Vlach, Vlach, no, it's okay… it's okay…" Ellie knelt in front of me… she rested her hands on my shoulders, trying to look me in the eyes, but my gaze remained fixated on the pile of organs and flesh and bone I'd left on the other side of the room… I couldn't really SEE it now, it was dark in there but that didn't help because I KNEW it was all there, concealed by shadows, but unforgettable…_

"_No, no it's not, it's NOT okay, it's NOT…" I babbled softly…_

Murder… wasn't _okay_…

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**No, I don't wanna die, so you're gonna have to**_

"_Vlach, no, don't do this… don't do this to yourself…" Ellie whimpered. It was… strange, hearing her sound so distressed… "Please, Vlach, look at me…" She grabbed my skull, gently tugging it downwards so I was forced to look directly at her. I tried to avert my eyes… I didn't DESERVE to look at her, an animal like me... I should be punished, FORCED to face what I'd done… I'd broken my personal promise of three years. I'd taken a human life. I was no better than any other necromorph now… "Nonononono… No, God, how could I… NONONONONO…" My voice was starting to rise to a hysterical pitch, so distraught…_

"_Vlach… stay with me, don't look at that, PLEASE… look at ME…" She sounded so upset that I HAD to look at her… it was a bad decision. It only reminded me of how BADLY I'd failed her to begin with…_

"_My GOD, Ellie, your eye…" I choked. It was terrible… her right eye socket had swollen shut from the means of the eye's brutal removal… there was blood all over her cheek, it was STILL leaking out from underneath the lid, like tears… it was sickening… I started to feel the rage again, rage that someone could MAIM such beautiful eyes without a second thought, but that scared me to death and I choked it back down, locked the beast away… Stross was gone now… he couldn't touch her anymore. I'd NEVER let anything bad happen to her again… my beloved… I reached out a claw, gently touching her cheek beneath the wound… she didn't flinch away. "This is all my fault… I'm so sorry…"_

_She shook her head. "It doesn't matter now. You… you saved my LIFE, Vlach… he… he nearly KILLED me… he would've taken out the other one too, but then, you showed up…"_

"_I shouldn't have left you in the first place..." I rasped miserably. I was dangerously close to tears… could I even CRY anymore with this accursed body? "I should NOT have left you… this… this wouldn't have h-happened…"_

"_Don't… i-it's not your fault…" Ellie shook her head, and I thought I caught the gleam of tears in her left eye. Ellie… beautiful, strong Ellie… was crying? "I told you to go… it was my decision, not yours… if anything, this is my OWN fault… don't blame yourself…"_

"_But I didn't want to go!" I said. I very, very gently hooked a claw beneath her chin, raised it so that SHE was looking at ME now. "If I'd only fought harder to stay with you, then this wouldn't have happened… you'd… you'd still have y-your eye… Stross would still be alive, and I-I… I wouldn't be a MURDERER... I knew it was wrong, but I STILL left you alone with h-him… I didn't want to, because Ellie, I…" I stopped myself, and all four of my luminous orange eyes widened… I'd almost just blurted out that I loved her. What the HELL would've happened then?_

_I stopped touching her chin, and lowered my skull in shame. "You… you shouldn't be near me… for your own safety… you've seen what I can do… I'm an animal, Ellie. A monster. I'm like every last one of those other necromorphs… a k-killing machine." I looked into her eye sadly. I wanted to cry. "I don't want to hurt you, t-too…"_

"_You're NOT an animal, Vlach!" Ellie said forcefully. Her gaze hardened, though her eye still glistened with held-back tears. "It… it only happened because I know you CARE… you wanted to protect me… I'm just… so sorry it had to happen THIS way… you're not a monster OR a murderer… I… I don't blame you…"_

_I stared at her, unsure of what to say. My feelings were in a complete disarray… I felt love, but it was muddled with pain, terror, a LOT of terror, guilt, anguish… every conceivable negative feeling… while Ellie continued to stare right back, slowly shaking her head… the tears were starting to come out now… everything she'd been through on this horrible space station… this entire nightmare… all of the pent-up emotions she'd felt since she lost her crewmembers and friends were threatening to overwhelm her…_

"_I don't blame you, Vlach…" was all she could whisper. "I don't blame you, I don't… I…" Her voice broke into a sob, startling me from my momentary stupor. Oh no… Ellie never cried… not ONCE, throughout this entire experience, had she cried… now it was all coming out…_

…_So imagine my surprise when she suddenly reached out and wrapped her arms around my neck, burying her face against it. I froze… I'd never been more taken off guard than that moment. This… this was everything I'd ever wanted since I'd __fallen in love with her, this contact… but after what I'd done to Stross… I didn't even know if I had control over my humanity anymore… what if I lost my temper again… and Ellie became the target? I was terrified of myself, terrified of my own mind… I didn't want to wake up from another episode of madness and see the woman of my dreams reduced to a pile of gore and guts, too…_

_But… I couldn't just… push her away, either…_

_**Blood is getting hotter, body's getting colder**_

_**I told you once, I'm the only one who holds her**_

_My overwhelming fear and my desire for affection were pitted against each other, fraying my tired thoughts… but in the end, the desire for affection won out. Barely._

_I gently wrapped my arms around her, hugging her tightly. She was trembling, her body wracked with quiet sobs, and I tried my best to provide her with SOME measure of comfort by stroking her back with the dulled parts of my claws. She didn't try to move away or indicate that I was making her uncomfortable… in fact, it seemed to be helping… if only slightly. Holding her… it made me feel better than I thought it would, too, SO much better. It helped me forget about my fears… for a little while, at least. I rested my head gently on the back of her left shoulder, and closed my eyes… I would make this moment last. I would protect her now… and make up for my earlier shortcomings…_

_However, a minute later there was a low burst of static, mingling with a voice, a male voice… it became clearer after a few seconds, and it was definitely a voice that we KNEW; Isaac!_

_Ellie sat back in surprise, sniffling, quickly opening up her com-link. "Isaac? Isaac, Ludwig? Is that you?"_

"_Ellie? My God, you're alive!" I heard Isaac breathe a sigh of relief. "I couldn't find your RIG signal, I thought you were DEAD! Jesus, what the fuck happened? Where's Stross? Is Vlach with you? He ran off and-"_

"_Isaac…" Ellie took a shaky breath, clearly still emotionally unsteady. "Stross… it's over. He's gone."_

"_Gone? What do you mean 'go-?" He stopped suddenly. He must've realized what exactly she'd meant by 'gone'. "Oh… SHIT. GodDAMMIT… sorry, Ellie…"_

"_It's… okay." She responded softly. And then added, with some hostility, "But you owe me an eye, you bastard."_

_That took me by so much surprise that I nearly LAUGHED. Oh, Ellie… ever the quick-witted individual I'd come to know and love, even in the most dismal of situations._

"_U-um…" Isaac obviously hadn't been expecting such a retort, either. "…Yeah, I guess you're right. Sorry." And then, "…Was it Vlach?"_

_It took Ellie a few moments to realize what he meant by that, but I knew… and I quickly looked down at the floor._

"…_Yeah. It was." she replied reluctantly. She'd lowered her voice… she didn't want to force me to think about it again… and I appreciated that. "I… I owe him my life."_

_There was silence from Isaac's end of the com-link, until, "…I should've known... okay. I've got your signal again. In the mines. Ludwig and I will be there as soon as we can. Stay put… if your current position is safe."_

_Ellie took a quick glance around, trying to avoid looking directly at Stross' remains. The room was dark, secluded… one wall looked like it could slide up and down like a door or something, but that hardly mattered. And besides… she had Vlach with her. Of COURSE she'd be safe. "It is."_

"_Alright, just wait there. We'll come find you." And with that, Isaac cut off the link, but not before Ludwig managed to squeeze in a quick "YO!" for good measure._

_It was quiet again… almost AWKWARDLY quiet. I kept my eyes averted, only glancing up once or twice as Ellie pressed a bandage to her bleeding eye socket… she was in bad shape. I could tell that much from the way her RIG was flashing red... it worried me badly... I expected her to get up and move away while we waited for Isaac and Ludwig to get here, our little moment of bonding interrupted and all… but instead she crawled back over to me, slipping her arms around my hollowed chest and resting her left cheek against my collarbone with a weary sigh._

_I sat perfectly still, too surprised to do ANYTHING… the sudden rush of elation flooding my senses momentarily pushing all things negative from my mind in one lovely sweep. This… this HAD to be a good sign. Of exactly WHAT… I couldn't say for sure… but here I was, cold, dead, MUTATED, soaked in the tepid blood of a delusional madman… and she'd come to me. Maybe she just needed to be comforted so badly that'd she'd accept it from anybody nearby… or maybe she didn't CARE what I was. But I could believe that it meant SOMETHING good, though… right?_

_Maybe… she'd be the one to save me from myself…_

_I wrapped her in a careful embrace again, even going so far as to gently run my claws through her hair… just to show some kind of shy affection. And I swear it, even in the darkness… I glimpsed her smile._

_But not even Ellie could FULLY banish the demons that lurked on the fringes of my mind… in the silence, they started to creep their way back in, like ravenous wolves on the edges of a warm campfire… I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd done, the man I'd SLAUGHTERED… Stross… of course I'd never forget him now… my first victim… first prey… his terrified face forever seared into my memories… his blood splattered across every inch of my body…_

_I unconsciously tightened my grip around Ellie, as if to protect her from the rotting remains of Stross on the opposite side of the room. From the dark thoughts swirling like a black undercurrent throughout the farthest reaches of my mind._

…_From me._

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**I don't wanna die**_

We sat there, holding each other the entire time, until a short while later Isaac and Ludwig finally reached us… and they saw what I'd done. Seeing Isaac again suddenly conjured up a new fear that I hadn't considered before… Isaac had been the one to _insist_ since the very beginning that we needed Stross and his "steps" if we were to destroy the Marker… and now, Stross was _dead_. Because of me. Did that mean that I'd completely sabotaged our objective? My God… how could I be so damn _careless_? I couldn't even bring myself to look my good friend in the eyes… there was no doubt in my mind that _I _was to blame if everything we'd been through had all been for nothing now… he'd be _furious _with me.

But… he understood, I guess. He claimed that Stross wouldn't have been able to help us destroy the Marker, after all. He was simply running away from his guilt… and while some things he'd told us _had _been at least _somewhat_ useful, he himself wouldn't have been…

To be honest… I felt a bit angry with him over that statement. So… that meant that we'd dragged him around all over the Sprawl, allowing him to weigh us down and get in our way, threaten us… for absolutely no reason whatsoever? Ellie had lost her eye… and I'd been forced to break my own promise and _kill _the man… all for _nothing_?

I swallowed my anger… I knew it wasn't Isaac's fault that things had turned out that way. He didn't know much more than we did… it was unfair to start pointing fingers (or, rather, pointing _claws_). There was no use arguing over it…

…We just left Stross' body there. That still bothers me, even now… as much as I had despised the man, I still felt that we should've at least given him _some _kind of proper send-off… especially since it was _my _fault that he had died to begin with. But there was no time to spare for such things… you had to leave the dead behind if you wanted to save your own life… the Sprawl taught you that the hard way.

Knowing that still didn't stop me from feeling guilty about it, though… I felt even _worse _when I got to thinking about how it wasn't even _really_ Stross' fault… it was his dementia, the hallucinations that drove him into insanity… he was so detached from reality that he'd hardly known what he was _saying_, let alone _doing_…

He… he was practically _innocent_.

_**Now that I see, I see you buried**_

_**Six feet below**_

These thoughts weighed me down badly… both mentally _and_ emotionally. It was like carrying a lead weight on my shoulders as our little ragtag group pressed onward to the Government Sector. Stross had been violent and belligerent, sure… but could we _really _have blamed him for that? How were we to know if that was how he _truly _behaved, and not just the dementia manifesting itself? Maybe he was really a nice guy, a man I could've gotten along well with… if only he'd not been insane. If only he'd not attacked my poor Ellie.

For God's sake… he was so terribly dogged by his mental demons that there was no way he could've properly defended himself. He was nearly helpless. He wouldn't have stood a chance.

I… I had _murdered _a defenseless, mentally unsound man.

_**Another life goes into the night**_

_**I couldn't let him breathe 'cause I didn't wanna die**_

I think Ellie started to notice that something was eating away at me… the way I lagged behind the rest of the group, staring vacantly down at the floor… how I would say very little to anybody… and the way that I so desperately wanted to be close to her, hold her again, but I forced myself to maintain a distance… I still felt like a danger to everybody around me. I didn't want to lose my temper and do to her what I'd done to Stross. My new thoughts concerning how morally _wrong _it may have been for me to kill him only reinforced that.

Looking back _now_… I know it was the right thing to do. Because I love Ellie more dearly than anyone and anything, ever… her safety ultimately meant more to me than a psychotic man's life ever would. But it still felt wrong to think of it that way at the time… like Stross was just some worthless, unfeeling organism… not a _human_ with his own soul, own feelings, own _history_…

_**And now that I see, I see you buried**_

_**Six feet below**_

I frequently caught Ellie giving me worried looks… I wished I could tell her that I was alright, but we'd both know that _that_ would be a blatant lie. She's sharp… I'm sure she knew it was still Stross' death that was to blame for my… _distant _behavior. But that showed that she cared. And that touched me…

On a few separate occasions… I swear to God, I saw Stross himself… only drenched in blood, looking just as he did after I'd finished with him, trailing organs and all, leering at me from the shadows, accusing me… but the second I blinked, he would disappear. I tried to tell myself that it was only the guilt of causing his death dogging me, perhaps interacting with the Marker's influence to produce these horrid hallucinations or whatever they were… or, more likely, simply the guilt making my imagination run away with me, like a child afraid of the so-called monsters in his closet. But that didn't mean that I wasn't still bothered by them…

…As much as I would've _loved _to be with Ellie there inside the control room of the… gigantic mining drill mechanism, I forced myself to stay outside, on the deck, as we bored through tons of rock and ore and swarming necromorphs. I fought alongside Isaac and Ludwig, severing limb after limb after limb, proving my worth… maybe even foolishly hoping deep down that Ellie would notice my strength, like some love-struck schoolboy trying to woo his crush… as if I could make her see past the scars and mutations and the sour reek of decay. I'm still not sure why I was even trying… the reason I had stayed away from the control room was because I was still afraid to be left alone with her, just in case… well, you know.

Well, there we were at last, crashing in unannounced (and boy, was _that _an unpleasant experience) – Government Sector, the heart of EarthGov and the resting place of the Marker - the dragon's den. It all came down to this… we were close, _so _close, close enough that I could practically _feel _the Marker's presence nearby, Ludwig, too… not surprising, as we _are _necromorphs, sentient or not.

I knew that it would get more dangerous than ever from here on out… those hundreds of necromorphs from the mines would surely find their way into the building through the hole that we'd just drilled in… and even though I knew very well that Ellie was more than capable of defending herself, that didn't stop me from worrying about her safety…

I needed to make up for what I'd done to Stross.

_**It's not alright, can you hear me as I cry?**_

_**I couldn't let you live 'cause I didn't wanna die**_

And when Ellie contacted Isaac's RIG to tell us that she'd discovered a gunship docked there… everything suddenly clicked into place inside my brain. I knew what I had to do. It would be difficult… for all of us… and I'd come away from it completely heartbroken… but it meant Ellie would get out of there, safe, alive… and _that _was all that mattered to me. She'd have a chance at a normal life… a life without necromorphs...

"_You guys! There's a gunship docked here!" Ellie exclaimed to us through Isaac's com-link._

_The three of us exchanged shocked glances. Well, THAT was surprising. A stroke of LUCK? Just for US? Unheard of!_

"_What? Is it damaged?" Isaac quickly asked._

"_Not that I can tell!" she replied, excitement obvious in her voice. "Guys, do you hear me? Do you know what this means? We're all going to make it out of here alive!"_

_In that moment, both Isaac and I looked up, and locked eyes… we must've been thinking the exact same thing. I glanced at Ludwig; even HE looked unusually serious. I looked back at Isaac, and gave him a slow, deliberate shake of the head... I hoped the sadness in my eyes wasn't TOO evident._

"…_One of us is… it's too dangerous for you to stay here, Ellie..." Isaac finally said. I closed my eyes. It was too painful a thought to bear… but it was for the very best. It had to be done…_

"_What are you talking about?" Ellie responded, sounding cross. "Just get your asses in here, quickly. I'm starting a systems check right now."_

_She cut the link, and immediately I rasped, "She can't stay, Isaac. I… I won't allow that. I can't."_

_Isaac nodded his helmet. "I know… she means a lot to you, doesn't she, Vlach?"_

_I was caught completely off-guard by the question, and I opened and closed my mouth, unsure of how to respond… I was suddenly grateful for the briefest second that my body WAS dead, because I'm sure if I'd been alive right then, my face would've turned bright red... But Isaac wasn't stupid, and there was no point in lying about it… I'd made it obvious enough since the beginning how I felt about her. I never HAD been that good at managing my feelings…_

_So I nodded meekly, and looked down at the floor. "…She does, Isaac… she really does."_

_Isaac just stared at me for a minute or two… it made me a tad uncomfortable. What was he thinking about me right now? That I was sick? Weak? That the whole damned concept of a necromorph being in love with a human was a disgusting perversion…?_

_In reality, Isaac was looking at Vlach, and knowing how much Ellie obviously meant to his friend… well, it reminded him of what Nicole had meant to him… and her safety. It was… sweet. He could sympathize with the poor necromorph. He… may not have been able to save Nicole, and it still pained his heart terribly… but now Vlach had the chance to save Ellie... and he would help his friend in whatever way he could._

_He finally just nodded, still looking at Vlach. "…I understand. Let's go." He turned and stepped through the doorway that would lead to the docked gunship, waiting for them to follow. I stared after him, wondering what he could've been thinking about._

_Ludwig chuckled softly from the floor, winking up at me as we walked. "Thought so… I could read ya like a book the entire time, Vlachy, m' boy. You love that gal somethin' fierce."_

_I moved forward with him towards the gunship, gulping nervously with what was to come. "…I do."_

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**No, I don't wanna die**_

It had finally arrived… my personal moment of truth. I hadn't expected that this would happen in the beginning… that this one chance at freedom would present itself to us. But it wasn't _our _chance… we had unfinished business to attend to. We couldn't leave… not while the Marker still stood. It was _Ellie_'s chance… and by God, I would make sure that she took it. It was far too dangerous for her in this place… I would not see her hurt again… or killed.

_The three of us entered the docking bay, which looked more or less like a whirlwind had torn through it… papers and boxes littered the floor, tables, chairs upended… everybody had clearly up and left this place in a hurry. But I was more focused on what was outside the gigantic window in front of us. The gunship Ellie had been talking about, docked, waiting for them. I could glimpse a figure moving around in the window of the ship, too… it had to be her._

_A pang of misery jabbed into my heart… my FIGURATIVE heart, at least. Freedom… so close, close enough to TASTE… but not for us. This was for Ellie, and Ellie alone…_

"_MAIN POWER… ON." A computerized voice announced above us._

_I suddenly ran ahead of my two friends, heading towards a blue holographic screen projected to the right of the doorway leading to the docked gunship itself… this was it…_

"_AUXILARY SYSTEMS, BOOTING UP…" the voice rang out again._

_I stood in front of it and waited for them to catch up, looking down… the screen read "GUNSHIP LAUNCH CONTROL" at the top… no doubt that I could easily send the ship away from here, then… without the three of us aboard it._

"_Finally, THERE you all are!" I heard Ellie say from Isaac's com-link. "I've been waiting for you. C'mon, get on the ship, we're getting out of here!"_

_I turned my head, looking at Isaac. He bit his lip, and nodded at me to go ahead. I wanted to do what Ellie said and get on that gunship so BADLY… but one couldn't simply just fly away from their troubles. Especially when that one's a necromorph. We had a Marker to destroy… I started tapping at the buttons displayed on the screen before me, doing it fast, so I wouldn't give myself the chance to change my mind…_

"_Whoa, hey… Vlach, what are you doing? Isaac, what's he doing…?" I swear, I could almost feel her confusion myself… but she'd realize what was happening quickly enough._

_There was a hiss of static as Ellie suddenly appeared in a vid-link transmission on Isaac's RIG. "Vlach, what the hell are you doing? Isaac, make him stop, he's…" NOW she understood what was happening. I could see it on that pretty face of hers… "Wait… no! NO! Don't you DARE! Don't you DARE launch this ship! …Vlach, STOP!"_

_Hearing her sound so distressed… it was tearing me apart inside... but I kept going, until the gunship was starting to pull away from the docking station. It was for the best… she could escape here, escape EarthGov, and go on to lead a happier, NORMAL life… a life that didn't involve me following her wherever she went, putting her at risk. Maybe she'd find a man that deserved such a wonderful woman as herself…_

…_Somehow, that last thought hurt so much worse than anything else. I turned away from the control panel, hanging my head… I didn't want her to have to see me like this…_

"…_It's your best chance, Ellie." said Isaac. "You've got life support, comms… hey, you're gonna be rescued."_

_Ellie was shaking her head, tears starting to prick at her left eye. "You... you BASTARDS…"_

"_We need you to be rescued. VLACH needs you to be rescued, Ellie… look at him. Saving you was HIS idea, y'know…" Isaac motioned towards me, and I chanced a peek upwards. Ellie looked surprised at that statement… VERY surprised. She didn't even know what to say…_

"…_We have to go now. Unfinished business." Isaac said. "Good luck, Ellie… bye." Isaac closed out the vid-link, and Ellie's face disappeared._

_As I stood there, it suddenly occurred to me that the end of my… well, afterlife may only be hours away… and that this would probably be the last time I ever saw my dear Ellie. And I'd… never even worked up the courage to let her know how I feel… I could save her from a screwdriver-wielding lunatic, but I didn't have the guts to confess my love to her…? Surely it couldn't hurt… just to let her know SOMEHOW…_

_I whirled around; the gunship was still backing away, and I could see Ellie still standing there in its window, staring at us as we no doubt grew smaller and smaller… and I had an idea._

_It was now or never._

_On impulse I rushed to the window, raising my clawed hand high, and started carving. The jagged tips made terrible squealing sounds as they dug into the thick glass, and Isaac and Ludwig winced behind me, trying not to cover their ears. I had to be quick, before she got too far away to see it… I dragged my claw across the window, the scratchy lines left in its surface eventually weaving together to form letters, and by the time I'd finally finished, they'd spelled out a simple three-word phrase, backwards so that she'd be able to read it from outside._

**_I LOVE YOU._**

_I rested my hand against the glass beside the message, gazing mournfully at the gunship as it slowly began to turn away... willing her to understand, willing her not to hate me for loving her... I saw her press herself against the window… even from a distance, I could see her staring right back at me, eye widened in disbelief… and then the ship had turned completely, risen up, and vanished._

_A low moan of anguish tore from my chest, and I sank to my knees, burying my jagged face in my hands. That was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do... I'd just let go of the one thing in the universe I'd loved more than anything, ANYTHING, my beautiful, shining star… the woman I'd loved despite the foolishness and impossibility of that love. And now… she was gone for good… but at least I'd been able to let her know how I feel. And she'd be safe now... that's all I could ask for._

_Ludwig shuffled over to me, resting a hand on my shoulder. "Man… that was gutsy. Ya did the right thing, my brother... ya really did."_

"…_I know…" I managed to croak miserably. But it sure didn't FEEL like I'd done the right thing… I missed her so much already. That smile, that voice... EVERYTHING about her, I missed it all._

_Isaac was still looking up at the message I'd scrawled into the glass, feeling solemn for what he'd just seen Vlach do. Ordinarily, Vlach was the shyest person you'd ever meet… he must've TRULY loved her to have done something so bold. "...I should've had you guys go with her… all of this is happening because of me, not you two… I don't want you both to end up dead for my mistakes… the REAL dead."_

"_Not a goddamn chance, Isaac." Ludwig said, turning his orange eyes to his good friend. "We've been there for ya since all this shit started on the Ishimura a few years back… and damn straight we're gonna be there 'til the end. We went into this a threesome… and if we're goin' out, well, we're goin' out a threesome, too."_

_His words startled me out of my stupor. I was surprised… Ludwig hardly EVER spoke with that kind of conviction, unless it was on the subject of sex or something equally as inappropriate… but that didn't make his words any less true. I nodded in agreement with them._

"_Guys…" Isaac was touched damn near to the point of tears, and that was unusual for him… he was probably just already emotional from everything they'd all been through over the past day or so… and his two friend's loyalty had just topped it all off. "I don't even know what to say… thanks, you two... can't thank you enough, really…" He went silent, and his eyes seemed to cloud over… and he looked almost DISTANT. He seemed to be looking at something further PAST them now… was somebody there? I turned and looked, but we were definitely the only ones in the room. I was puzzled. Was he… hallucinating again…?_

"…_Isaac? Are you alright?" I asked cautiously. Was he seeing Nicole again?_

_He seemed to snap out of it, and he shook his head, looking a little dazed. "It's… it's nothing. Not really there." The haunted look in his eyes led me to believe that what he'd seen just now bothered him more than he let on, though... His helmet clicked back into place over his head with a metallic whirring sound, and he started walking. "It's time. Let's go."_

And we followed… followed him towards what we'd thought would more than likely be our deaths.

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**I don't wanna die, so you're gonna have to**_

The deeper we ventured into the Government Sector… the harder Tiedemann tried to throw as many obstacles in our way as he could, and the more necromorphs there seemed to be. _Swarms _of them... Sometimes I wondered if any of the Sprawl victims had given rise to _other _sentient necromorphs… I mean, thousands and _thousands _of people had lived on that space station… there _had _to be others. Ludwig and I couldn't _possibly_ be the only two in existence… right? But we'd never met them... I could only hope that they'd maybe managed to flee to a safe place… or that they'd died peacefully.

The Marker was close now, close enough that its presence could be _felt_… like a constant, uneasy pressure. It raised little voices at the back of my mind, ugly whispers… they urged me to kill, but no, I wouldn't listen, I _couldn_'_t_… I couldn't lose myself there, not then, I fought them, and Ludwig was fighting them, too, I could tell… and then we reached the machine. It looked like something that you would find inside a hospital… and Isaac claimed that Nicole had told him that that machine would help him regain his memories, and we could use them to destroy the Marker. And suddenly, everything made sense – Stross. The "sessions" that'd he'd babbled endlessly about. The "steps". How he'd said that the "needle would make you see"... it was this. This is what he'd been talking about. And Ellie had suffered for it.

Well, I guess it must've worked… because when we'd finally reached the base of the gargantuan Marker, plowing our way through what felt like an entire _legion _of necromorphs… something happened to Isaac. I'm still not sure _what_, exactly… he doesn't like to talk about it. He went into… some sort of shock, I thought it was. Hell, I was convinced he was having some sort of _attack_… possibly induced by the javelin wounds he'd sustained from that bastard Tiedemann before his death… he wouldn't respond to any stimuli, not our voices, our touch, _anything_… he was just standing there, breathing heavily, his eyes wide, darting back and forth, like he was witnessing some gruesome event happening before him that only he could see… Ludwig and I were too busy fighting back necromorphs to help him, unleashing the barely-suppressed fury that the Marker's influence had whispered into our skulls on them instead of possibly on Isaac, trying not to get overwhelmed… and then…

…It was over.

_Ludwig and I turned away… the battle was over. The last of the necromorphs had disappeared, the bodies of the ones we'd killed piled around us like the corpses of grisly fallen soldiers… we'd survived that. Two against dozens… but it's not like we hadn't taken our fair share of damage. Our bodies were heavily scarred from our experience on the Sprawl, COVERED with cuts and gouges that would never heal… my claws were chipped and cracked into disfigurement, not to mention the thickened top of my skull, too… but we WERE already dead, after all... can't heal a necromorph._

_I noticed something else, too… the voices. They'd disappeared... did that mean… the Marker… was being destroyed? I stared up at the imposing stone structure, so tall I couldn't even see the top from down here… and noticed the wide cracks that were spreading across the twin onyx spires, pieces falling away… we'd done it… we'd really done it…_

"_WARNING. REACTOR CONTAINMENT DESTABILIZED." A recorded voice announced via intercom. "A REACTOR BREACH IS IMMINENT. EVACUATION OF ALL PERSONNEL IS REQUIRED. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."_

_Well… THAT didn't sound good…_

_Isaac was still standing there, but now he was looking around in confusion… his RIG was nearly empty… he was very, VERY badly hurt, and no doubt disoriented... He turned to us, seeming somewhat surprised we were even still there. "...Lud…? …Vlach…?_

"_Isaac! My GOD, what the fuck happened to ya, pal?" Ludwig crawled over to him. "We thought you were havin' a damn seizure or some shit… but you're gonna have to tell us 'bout it later, listen, man, we gotta get outta here, ain't got no time to waste, some reactor thing's 'bout to go to shit and we've gotta-"_

"…_Can't." Isaac replied matter-of-factly._

"…_Can't? CAN'T? Whaddya mean, 'can't'?" Ludwig barked. " O' course we can, we just-"_

"_ENGAGING AUXILLARY POWER SYSTEMS…"_

"…_Can't. Because of THAT." Isaac shrugged and jabbed a thumb at the intercom. He talked about it as calmly as if he were simply commenting on the weather. "Once that reactor core is breached… this whole station's gonna blow. We wouldn't have time to find a way to escape, even if we tried… it's over. We're done." He sat down on the ground, shuddering beneath our feet, and stared solemnly off into space._

"_What? B-but…" Ludwig just gawked at him, hinged jaw agape. He couldn't find the words to say to something like this… because in some far-off corner of his mind, he KNEW Isaac was right, but he didn't want to just roll over and accept it…_

"…_He's right, Ludwig." I said softly. "We've… we've done all we can… look. The Marker's been destroyed…" I motioned towards the massive stone structure, crumbling to pieces along with the rest of the Sprawl around us. "We've done what we've set out to do… we've stopped an EVIL, and THAT's what matters." I sighed, and sat down on the ground beside Isaac. "…And, well… fate's a bitch, pardon my language… and we knew very well heading into this that we may not come out alive… I guess it's just our time…"_

_Strange… I sounded strangely calm myself. I guess that tended to come with accepting your inevitable fate. I mean, come on… I was already a necromorph, and a beaten-up one, at that… I'd cheated death several times over, killed a man, and sent away the love of my life... I had nothing left to lose… maybe TRUE death would finally bring me sweet peace._

_Ludwig looked from me to Isaac and back again, his jaw opening and closing like he was trying to find SOMETHING to say… but words had escaped him. There was no denying it now; he KNEW they were right. He'd never exactly been one of those "for the greater good" kinds of guys… but hey, it was never too late to change. He bowed his head and dragged himself to Isaac's other side, coiling his tail beneath him._

"_WARNING. REACTOR CONTAINMENT FAILURE. A REACTOR BREACH IS NOW IN PROGRESS. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY, ALL PERSONNEL, ALL CIVILIANS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."_

"_Well, you guys…" said Isaac. "It's been, well… one hell of a three-year ride, I guess…" He took a deep breath before continuing. "…Thank you. Thank you both… you've stuck by me from the very beginning, and put up with a bunch of shit you didn't have to for my sake… and even though you're necromorphs, I'm damn glad we met, even under those... crappy circumstances. We've been through Hell together… and I couldn't have asked for better friends."_

"_You're more than welcome, Isaac…" I replied. "Without you… Ludwig and I would've died a long time ago… you gave us a second chance at some kind of life, and for that, I'll always be grateful… and if it weren't for you and your 'bad' ideas, well…" I allowed myself a soft chuckle. "I never would've gotten to meet Ellie… so thank you for that, too."_

_Ludwig reached up and clapped Isaac on the back. "You're one o' the coolest fellas I've ever met, buddy-boy… thanks for lettin' us tag along… and, oh... thanks for not dismemberin' us."_

"_N-no problem… thanks…" Isaac croaked, reaching up to wipe the tears away from his eyes._

"_WARNING. LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE. SEEK PROTECTION IMMEDIATELY."_

_So there we were… just the three of us, exactly as it had begun over three years ago aboard the Ishimura… and now exactly as it would end in only a few short minutes. The same three, who'd fought together… and now would die together, too. We were silent as the ground bucked and shuddered beneath us and the one-great space station began to fall apart, resigned to our tragic fate… well, at least, we HAD been, until a familiar face decided to appear before us..._

_Our heads jerked up in surprise when Isaac's RIG began to stream a vid-link transmission, and we were greeted by an unmistakable and VERY peeved-sounding voice. "You stupid BASTARDS! Was this your great plan? Play the heroes and dump me off and DIE?"_

_I couldn't believe my eyes. Either this was just another cruel hallucination spawned by the dying Marker… or I was REALLY seeing this. "Eh…E-E-Ellie?"_

_Isaac smiled with bemusement at my high-pitched squeak. "Well… I'm full of bad ideas, remember? All three of us are, looks like…"_

_Ellie, however, wasn't looking quite as amused. "Yeah? Well, here's a bad idea of my own; I'm crashing through the roof to get you. Now, all of you! Move your asses!"_

"_Huh?" I barked, jumping to my feet. "Wait, no, Ellie, you can't! It's too dangerous! Steer clear of the station, please!"_

"_Sorry, Vlach…" Ellie replied, but I thought I could detect a slight softness enter her voice... "But you don't really have a say this time. Heads up!"_

_The ground careened beneath us, very nearly bowling us all over as a massive explosion tore the high ceiling apart. Immediately, the massive room began to decompress – decompress VIOLENTLY. It was all I could do to not to get sucked away in the ensuing whirlwind, digging my claws into the steel grating at our feet, while Ludwig practically had to HUG onto it with no legs to stabilize himself. We looked up to see the gunship, rapidly descending, swinging around the collapsing Marker remnants…_

"_WARNING. HULL BREACH. DECOMPRESSION…"_

"_VLACH! GRAB ONTO ME!" Isaac shouted over the howling wind… I stood, and grabbed his shoulders while Ludwig stumbled upright to his hands…_

"_WARNING. GRAVITY FAILURE…"_

We were swept straight off of our feet… and let me tell you, I never once expected to find myself clinging to a man's shoulders as he jetted off after a fleeing gunship, dodging flying chunks of debris and God knows what else… it was all I could do not to accidentally jab my claws through Isaac's shoulders with how hard I had to hold on… Ludwig was sprinting beside us along the sides of the Marker's remains, moving faster than I'd ever seen him move before, leaping from section to section as they broke away… how he could even stand to _touch_ the thing, I didn't know, but it was quite a sight to see… we were almost there, for God's sake, Isaac and I were within _feet _of the open door of the ship… Ludwig had managed to push himself off of the Marker and clamber his way inside, and now he was holding his hand out to us, and Ellie was, too… I leaned forward, grabbed Ludwig's hand, and Isaac grabbed Ellie's, they pulled us into the darkened ship… I remember turning around to see the Sprawl erupting in a massive outburst of yellow and orange flames, Ellie was screaming for Isaac to shut the hatch… we were all thrown backwards by the force of the explosive blast, and then…

…It was _really _over.

_**I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die**_

_**No, I don't wanna die, so you're gonna have to**_

I couldn't believe it. I could _not _believe it. We'd… we'd actually _survived_. We'd convinced ourselves that we were only minutes away from death, but we'd _survived_! Incredible! And it was all thanks to Ellie… the smartest, bravest and certainly the most beautiful woman I'd ever been blessed enough to meet. I couldn't have loved her more even if I'd tried…

_I picked myself up off the floor of the ship, where I'd been thrown when the perimeter of the explosion had rocked the fleeing gunship. Well, the ship was apparently still in one piece, and DEFINITELY flying… they'd… they'd MADE it! They'd escaped! They were alive…! Well… SOMEWHAT alive, anyway…_

_I was still trying to clear my head and GRASP what had just happened when I felt my skull snap roughly to the side. I couldn't feel any pain, of course, but still, it startled me enough to elicit a little yelp of surprise. I turned to see who in the world had struck me, and to my great surprise, I saw it was Ellie. She was glaring at me with her one fiery green eye, and was holding what appeared to be a very dented-up steel pipe in her hand._

"_THAT's for sending me away in the first place!" she shouted. I withered under her intense gaze, shrinking away… I'm sure it would've looked absolutely HILARIOUS to anybody watching… a seven-foot-tall, ferocious-looking undead monster, cowering in fear of a woman wielding a piece of piping. Of all the crazy sights… I closed my eyes, feeling saddened. Did this mean that she hated me now…?_

"…_And THIS is for everything else."_

_I felt my head get pulled downwards, and I opened my eyes – Ellie had her hands on the sides of my jaw, and her lips were pressed against my teeth. She was… KISSING me._

_I swear, my eyes must've been the size of saucers… I was taken so much by surprise that I couldn't even MOVE. So much happiness was starting to flow through my body that I was almost giddy with it… God, if you're really there, please, PLEASE let this be real, don't let me just be unconscious and only DREAMING this…_

_She broke off the kiss and smiled up at me… such a gorgeous, warm smile. A soft blush crept into her cheeks as she took my hand, running her thumb along one worn claw. "…Thank you for everything, Vlach…" she whispered. "…I guess that makes it twice you've saved my life… I'll never forget that…" She giggled. "…And I'll definitely never forget that window..."_

"_Window…? Oh!" I ducked my head sheepishly, remembering my impulsive expression of love. "Y-yeah… and there's no need to thank me." I lowered my voice. "I… I did it because… well… you're a girl worth every bit of it… Elizabeth."_

_Ellie blushed even harder, eyebrows raising, and I couldn't keep myself from chuckling. She sure was cute when she was off her guard. A brief wink let her know that I was only doing a little bit of innocent playing around, and she flashed me a coy smile in return._

_A wolf-whistle sounded from the front of the gunship, and Ellie rolled her eye and turned around. Ludwig was lounging on the floor, smirking up at us, and even Isaac couldn't hold back a grin, despite how absolutely EXHAUSTED he looked. "…Wasn't me."_

"_Yeah?" she snorted. "Well, that reminds me, I still haven't hit YOU yet for letting him get away with that!"_

_She glanced over her shoulder and flashed me the quickest wink before striding over and giving Isaac a whack on the head with the pipe, which he didn't do the greatest job of dodging. And when Ludwig pointed and laughed at him, she whirled around and gave HIM a whack upside the jaw… not that he could feel it, but still, it must've been satisfying._

_I was laughing pretty hard by that point. We all were, including Isaac, the only one who'd actually FELT that pipe's impact. I think it was our way of releasing the tension that had plagued us since the very beginning… of forgetting about the pain and the fear of capture, if only for a little while… it felt good. Great, actually. Better than I'd felt in a long time… probably since I'd been human, I'm sure. The only feeling that could beat it was, well… the feeling I got inside whenever I saw Ellie._

_It felt like we'd be okay… even if we didn't know what would happen to us next, or where we'd go from here, what we'd do… we'd be okay. As long as our little team stayed together… we'd be just fine._

To this day, that remains one of my favorite memories… the only _really _positive one I'd be able to take away from my nightmarish Sprawl experience. Apart from meeting Ellie, of course… and getting to be with my best friends, though in terrible situations…

But it's not my _absolute _favorite…

_**I don't wanna die…**_

_The cockpit of the gunship was dark and quiet, save for the soft hums of the engines as they auto-piloted us through space towards destinations unknown, and the slight glow produced by the holographic control panels. Isaac was asleep in one of the two pilot's chairs… he snored. Loudly. And mumbled to himself. But I didn't mind. This was most likely the first halfway-decent bit of rest the poor man had gotten since before he'd arrived on the Ishimura those three long years ago… it'd be rude to keep him awake._

_Ludwig was curled up on the floor behind the chairs, his tail coiled up and head resting on his arms in a manner somewhat reminiscent of a family dog. (We can't really "sleep", per se… being dead, our bodies have no need for sleep… but we CAN sort of enter a sleep-like state… more or less a deep doze.)_

_As for myself, I was sitting in the other pilot's chair next to Isaac's… my head bowed as I dozed lightly. Ellie was off somewhere towards the back of the ship, I think… redressing her wounds. I kept fussing over those… saying that she really needed to get them treated, ESPECIALLY her eye... I was worried that it would become infected if nothing was done about it. But she'd always just INSIST that she'd be alright, and that we didn't have time to stop anywhere for treatment, not when we were basically fugitives now… but I could tell easily enough that the injury still pained her. The injury that I STILL felt was partially my fault she'd received in the first place…_

_My eyes were drifting closed… I wouldn't rest for long… Ellie needed to sleep FAR more than I ever would. I'd let her have the chair when she was ready…_

…_It couldn't have been more than a few minutes I'd been sitting there with my eyes closed when I thought I heard footsteps… and felt a weight slowly lower itself into my lap, shifting around. My eyes flickered open – Ellie was snuggling up to me. Her arms were wrapped around my neck, her cheek resting back against my collarbone…_

_I remained still, trying not to let the glow cast by my four eyes disturb her… I was happier than words could describe… Hell, I doubt the words to describe such joy even EXIST. I found myself worrying for a moment whether or not the slight reek that my three-year-old rotting flesh likely still gave off would make her feel ill… but as I listened to her breathing slow into the steady, gentle rhythm of slumber, I figured she must've been okay… maybe she was used to it._

_I slipped my own arms around her, resting my pronged chin against the top of her head. She snuggled closer, pulling her legs up to her belly so that she was now fully in my lap… I lightly ran the backs of my claws against her back, rubbing it… God, I love her so much, I'd give whatever life I have for her, give my SOUL if only I could... in an INSTANT…_

…_And maybe… maybe she loved me, too._

_I allowed my eyes to close again to the darkness… a soft rumbling began to vibrate in my throat, almost of its own accord… a rumble that sounded ridiculously akin to a purr._

_That _was my _absolute_ favorite memory.

And that was it... my story. _Our _story.

We still share moments like those often… enjoying one another's comfort and company. It's… a complicated relationship to describe… Ellie's the kind of woman that eases her way into love… she'd rather share it personally than be openly outspoken about it... it may be because I'm, well, you know... a _necromorph_... it's a relationship that you have to think long and hard about, obviously... I like that, though… it feels more… _real_.

But there _is _love… I've seen it in her gaze when she looks at me. You can't hide something like that… and she knows that I love her, too… wherever we all go from here, we'll be together… taking it one step at a time.

It's just… _how_ exactly that love and togetherness was earned that will follow me forever… as happy as I can be, I'll never forget about it.

_**I don't wanna die…**_

The fleeting visions of Stross' walking corpse may have quickly disappeared… but the memory of it will _always _be seared into my darkest memories. Whenever I close my eyes… I have to hope that I won't see the image of his mangled body imprinted upon them. I have to hope that when my… when my _afterlife _finally ends, and if there really _is_ a God… that he won't just cast me into some eternal pit of fire for my sins. Though I doubt that would even_ remotely_ phase me… I've already seen Hell.

…I still don't regret what I've done. Because it was all for Ellie, and like I said before, I would choose her safety over Stross' indefinitely. I know that sounds terrible, and I feel the tiniest bit bad for admitting it… but I can't lie. Ellie is my entire _world_… and Stross just happened to be the root cause of her troubles. I may have promised myself aboard the _Ishimura _that I'd never take a human life… but sometimes, you have to break a promise for the sakes of the ones you care about, I guess.

Stross… wherever your soul is right now… I'm sorry it had to turn out this way. I can't say I know the man you may have been before your dementia wore you down… but I _can _say I didn't like the man it made you become. I can't blame you for the dementia… that was thanks to the Marker… but… you _hurt_ Ellie… you nearly _murdered _her as you'd done to your own _family_… and you incurred her guardian necromorph's wrath. You were a danger to yourself, and a danger to us all… so perhaps it _is _better this way… you have your peace, and we have ours now, too.

But still… it's a shame you had to be the one to force me to break that promise.

_You_ made _me_ break _you_.

But our conflict will never fade from my mind… because I'll remember you, every time I look down and see _your _blood staining my flesh and my pants… every time that I struggle to rest peacefully… every time that I hold Ellie close… and I'll always think…

_**You didn't have to die…**_

oOo

…_And now you know my dirty little not-so-secret secret… I like to ship Ellie with my own Stalker character. I can't help myself! They're just so… so CUTE together! GAH! MUCH cuter than Isaac/Ellie, in my opinion... and I usually don't even LIKE OC/Canon pairings, heh._

…_So I've pretty much been working on this for the better part of a month… I apologize that it's so damn long and probably boring… but the song reminded me of this RP so much that I HAD to write a songfic featuring it. It started out as something intended to be brief but it became somewhat of a big personal project for me, and I don't think that a single songfic should be split up into chapters… sorry! I actually don't feel that this is my best work… but I've worked too long and hard on it, so I guess it's worth the upload. Your reviews are welcomed!_

_Now I'll just sit back, sip my Mountain Dew… and wait for everybody to tell me what a sick necrophiliac fuck I am. Hahaha._

_And like I've said before, if you think that I might've been a little too graphic in describing the gore and should up the rating on this or anything… warn me, please!_


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